Wide shallow garden ideas please.
inezhardie
Posts: 45
I'm doing a garden course and am trying to redesign in front of my house which is a very wide but narrow / shallow area - (24m long by 6m wide) already split into 3 areas all about 6m in depth from the house to the front wall. Friends suggested I look at similar garden images to get ideas but I don't see many about... Any ideas where I can look or does anyone have a wide shallow garden to give me ideas? I've posted some of my pictures to explain what I mean if that will help.
Left side of front garden in gravel (west facing) - planted with grasses, perennials that like good drainage and spring bulbs
Middle of front garden all to gravel with higgledy-piggledy tubs at the moment... In shade most of the day though South facing.
Other side border East facing mainly shrubs and trees with some perennials and spring bulbs...
A view to the house from the driveway gate showing the main area I'm trying to redesign.
Amy ideas to get me started would be a help - I've measured up and put my measurements on paper so far and have come up with a first idea for my draft plan... see below
Posts
My previous house had a wide shallow garden. Like yours I tried to do it so that when i looked out of the windows,each window had a different view . I also took the garden from one end (a narrow end) as opposed to straight on. Again that helped to give a suggestion of more than what there was.
Hope that helps
Sorry no photos
Try working on diagonals, either one big one or divide it into 3 equal parts and then do a diagonam in each of those, bit like a patchwork quilt. Keep the planting palette simple with just a few plants repeated through the design.
Another soultion woul dbe to divide it into 3 and make a circle teh centre of each design using diffrent coloured gravels or grass. You could play with the circles and make them yin/yang with planting colours and contrasts to enhance them.
Thanks so much Rosa and Obelixx for your input and ideas I'll try them out on paper and see where I can go from there. I agree about not taking it straight on as that's what makes it look even narrower and so taking it on the diagonals sounds good and keeping the planting simple I think is a must too - I thought I'd recycle some of what I have already in tubs but limit it to just a few and do repetition of those. Re your other solution Obelixx I like that idea though it would mean planning to change all three parts of the front garden and I was hoping to just change the middle part. But as I'm pipe dreaming on paper I could also give your ying/yang ideas a go and see how it looks anyway.