On 3/15/13 2:53 AM, Michelle B wrote:
We are novice gardeners who have just moved into a newly built home with
a blank canvas for a garden. (Just earth, not even any grass). We would
love to design it ourselves, but are looking for some pointers to make
sure we start off in the right direction.
Although most garden design web articles and books that we have reviewed
seem to tackle the problem of long, thin gardens, we have the opposite
problem, in that our garden is very wide, but not very deep (22metres
wide by 14 metres deep).
How can we best design the garden to make it appear narrower and deeper
than it actually is? The garden is completely flat and gets sun all day
long. It is surrounded by a wire mesh fence, but through the fence we
have uninterrupted views over open fields.
Any advice would be appreciated.

How high is the fence? That is, do you have to look through it for the
view, or can you look over it? The reason I am asking this is that, if
you hide the fence with vines and shrubs, the view becomes an extension
of your garden, making it appear much deeper.

I would not rely entirely on vines, which turn the fence into a green
wall. That is why I also suggested shrubs to create an irregular image.

In any case, to ensure you get the design you want and a plant list that
is suitable for the climate in your area, I would use a professional to
design the garden even if you plan to plant it yourself. A good
landscape designer will work with you to get the results you want.

I designed the garden for my first house. It was beautiful but required
so much maintenance that, in the summer, I was gardening by moonlight.
For my second (current) house, I had someone design the garden. It too
was beautiful. The area was larger than for my first house, but it
required less maintenance.

One other piece of advice: Be careful if you plant trees. For my
current house, the design included a shade tree for the back. After
about 30 years (we are this house almost 40 years), the tree grew so
large and created so much shade that we had to redo the entire back yard
with a new design, switching from plants requiring full-day sun to
plants that thrived with part-shade.

Although I live in southern California, my garden has design elements
characteristic of an English perennial garden: informality with color,
carefully planned to look unplanned, a theme that is quite subtle.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean, see
http://www.rossde.com/garden/climate.html
Gardening diary at http://www.rossde.com/garden/diary