Category: Design

Here you can find stories about garden design, including planning and garden layout; using design techniques like form, texture, contrast and repetition; working with proportion and shaping spaces; uniting hardscape and plants; looking at gardens to understand why some things work – and others don’t; finding out about the lessons and ideas we can pick up from show gardens; incorporating garden decoration; and using garden design to evoke emotion. GardenDrum has stories on a wide range of garden styles and sizes, from the tiniest courtyard, to suburban backyards and large acreage country gardens. For more in-depth design stories, join GardenDrum so you can visit the Garden Design Centre.

Circles and squares in the Blue Water Roof garden Chelsea 2013 What’s hot…or lukewarm

Reply

Apart from the few bright sparks among the Chelsea gardens, the majority of year’s main display gardens were safe, tasteful and disappointingly dull. Phillip Johnson’s Australian garden was an obvious Best in Show standout with its innovative plant palette and exciting raised studio pod, and I loved the ‘Seeabiility’ garden, ‘The East Village’ garden with its flowing sinuous lines, and the huge greenwall in the ‘Stoke-on-Trent Story of Transformation’ garden. And the ‘As Nature Intended It’ garden was refreshing in its rejection of the now ubiquitous perennial flower mix. Continue reading →

Reed Pugh suburban garage with beautiful new vegetable roof garden Suburban vegetables reach new heights

Reply

A friend recently introduced me to someone who has true passion for vegetable gardening in limited space. This new friend of mine has built a vegetable garden on the roof of her new garage! They recently rebuilt the garage with the intention of putting a deck on its roof to grow vegetables and keep bees. It is a tasteful and beautiful use of the space on display for the whole neighborhood. Continue reading →

Roberto Burle Max Sitio Roberto Burle Marx’s private Sitio

4

Roberto Burle Marx single-handedly changed the face of tropical garden design while introducing to the world a host of amazing indigenous Brazilian plants hitherto ignored by Brazilians. In the process became an international figure. It’s intriguing to delve into his soul as an artist and plantsman to find out why his impact was so gargantuan. Continue reading →

Design Sandra Heggen Sustainability in garden design

3

This is a subject that is very dear to my heart. I get quite passionate about the subject so do apologise if I offend any readers. I have been a sustainable garden advocate now for at least 20 years – well before most people even considered what sustainable gardens really meant. So I have put a lot of mental energy into working out why I think the way that I do about how we design gardens and how we manage them into the future. I was also the only owner/designer of a garden that was accredited with Ecotourism Australia for its sustainability credentials. Continue reading →

Ctenanthe lubbersiana provides brilliant flashes of yellow in the shade Ctenanthe – the never never plants

10

Do you have some Never Never Plants in your garden? If you live in a warm climate, you just may have, and you wouldn’t even know it. These are tough plants that are often relegated to the back corners of shaded gardens or office interiors. They don’t often feature in garden books or articles so there widespread existence is testimony to their hardiness. If you have some shady spots and are looking for some lush low maintenance hardy plants, these could be the plants for you. Continue reading →

My own boots Thank you mum for my green fingers

1

With mothers being celebrated this month, I wonder how many gardeners can credit their mothers for igniting that magnificent obsession called gardening. The answer, I would bet, is many. Mine gave me a small corner of the garden to tend as well as providing a rambling, endless (to my child’s eyes) farm garden in which to dream and scheme. Continue reading →

Jud's agave and succulent garden California Jud’s amazing agave & succulent garden

8

I have the Long Beach Marathon to thank for finding this garden. No, I didn’t run the marathon, more like actively avoided it. The marathon barricades cut off much of my end of Long Beach, so trying to get a few errands done was a circuitous challenge. I ended up in neighborhoods I don’t often see, such as the one where this front garden fills a corner lot. I vowed to return. Last night, I found it again, even though I had misremembered the street name. Who needs street names with a garden like this? I bet locals use it for reference: “Hang a right at Little Lotusland…” Continue reading →

Lambley Nursery2 Lambley Nursery

5

Just outside of Ballarat is a hidden gem. A beautiful garden appears much like an oasis of delight in the middle of the Victorian goldfields. A picture perfect farmhouse sits nestled amongst some simply stunning displays. Lambley Nursery is David Glenn’s labour of love.
David and his artist wife Criss Canning have molded the property into what it is today. Open to the public, you can wander amongst a variety of gardens and easily find something that will ignite some inspiration. Continue reading →