Designing a small garden - part 4

This is the 4th (and final!) part of my thoughts on the design of small gardens theme.

The earlier parts are the 3 posts immediately before this one, and can be reached by clicking on these links ...

Part 1 - introduction to why small gardens need designing;
Part 2 - lose the boundaries, borrowed views & landscape, using 3 dimensions;
Part 3 - keep it simple, maximise space usefulness, optical illusions;
Part 4 follows - keep it interesting, growing for the table and utility issues.



7. Keep it interesting:

A garden space planted entirely with unchanging, neatly clipped, evergreen hedging can be a tranquil place to relax, but it will lack the seasonal changes which I think bring vitality to a garden.

A very small garden may not be able to sustain too many changes in form – rounded, conical, arching, cylindrical, horizontal-tiered, vase-like, etc – without becoming too “busy” and seeming cluttered, but changes of texture and leaf colour can add enough variety to ensure it’s not a boring space. Restrained use of flower “fireworks” and foliage changes can create seasonal highlights that keep the interest going.

If you’re using a small tree, try to get value from it with blossom, leaf colour changes and berries – take a look at Amelanchier, Sorbus or Euonymus – or try one with interesting winter bark, such as the Paper-Bark Maple (Acer griseum). Click here for more information on keeping your garden interesting through the winter.

A tree will also provide food and/or habitat for wildlife to add interest to your garden, especially if you allow some of the “hidden corner” beneath it to be old branches, dry dead leaves, or a “bug hotel” made from old bricks, straw, branches, etc contained in some wire or plastic mesh. These will certainly help support insects, birds and maybe frogs/toads or a hedgehog. This year is the International Year of Biodiversity - my post on this explains more about the importance of gardens to wildlife, and how to attract it to your space.

Don’t forget the value of the view out to your small garden from indoors – especially the night-time view, where “nightscape” lighting will be much more economical to achieve than in a larger garden! Click here for more information on garden lighting.

8. Growing for the table:

A small garden is unlikely to give you scope for a regular vegetable garden, but you can still produce some food – espaliered fruit (apples, pears, cherries, kiwi) grown against a sunny house wall; dwarf fruit trees in patio containers (peaches or nectarines); window-ledge containers for herbs, salad crops or stir-fry leaves; potato barrels, strawberry planters or tomatoes in hanging baskets.

Follow these links for more information on window ledge planting and edible flowers.

9. Utility issues:

Practicalities also need to be considered. Unless it’s a small front garden we’re addressing, you’ll probably need a washing line of some kind. Rotary lines are economical in space and can be removed out of the way when not required. Another discreet option is a retractable pull-out line with the spool fixed to the house wall and the extended end hooked onto another wall, well-fixed post, or (perhaps) a strong tree branch.

Waste bins / wheelie bins may need to be accommodated, but could be out of sight behind a hedge or trellis screen.

A compost bin is still a good idea, even in a small garden. If there’s not space to hide a conventional bin (ideally, a timber structure with air gaps rather than a closed plastic composter) there are ornamental “bee-hive” types – just Google “bee hive composter” for retailers.

Unless your garden planting is exceptionally drought-tolerant, plants will need watering in hot/dry periods, especially those in containers & hanging baskets. This is much less work in a small garden! A small garden also makes it very easy to include irrigation for patio containers/planters, hanging baskets and inset borders using a solid-walled hose from the water source taken around the periphery, with smaller tubes punched into the hose taking water to adjustable micro-sprinklers in the pots. These drip-irrigation systems from “Hozelock” are readily available at garden centres and DIY stores, are relatively inexpensive, and can be easily automated with a battery-powered timer at the water tap. Even better, but more expensive, are automatic solar-powered pumps attached to rainwater harvesting butts, such as “WaterWand”.

For collecting rainwater in a smaller garden, there are unobtrusive wall-mounted slimline butts such as the “Prestige” from waterbuttsdirect and others.

That’s the end of my article on designing a small garden - you can reach the other parts via the links at the top of this post, or by scrolling on down through my blog.

If you’re inspired by these ideas to have a more adventurous attempt at designing your small garden – great! If you’re daunted by it and would like some professional help click here to get in touch!

How Sustainable is Your Garden?

The UK government recently launched a new approach to food production over the next 20 years (The Food Strategy), including the aim of greater sustainability in our food supply. In the Guardian report of (Environment Secretary) Hilary Benn’s speech to the Oxford Farming Conference he is quoted as saying:


"Food security is as important to this country's future wellbeing, and the world's, as energy security. We need to produce more food. We need to do it sustainably. And we need to make sure what we eat safeguards our health ...We know that the consequences of the way we produce and consume our food are unsustainable to our planet and to ourselves ...We know we are at one of those moments in our history where the future of our economy, our environment, and our society will be shaped by the choices we make now." He said consumers, rather than retailers, should lead by buying "greener" food, wasting less and growing more of their own.

Interestingly, the imperial war museum is staging an exhibition this year about how we Brits coped with food shortages during WW2, including grow-your-own, eating seasonal produce and recycling. Perhaps with the current revived interest in these areas, we can learn from the experience of our grandparents?


Sustainability is also prominent in this year's Gardener's World Live Show, with the announcement by NS&I (National Savings), the show sponsors, of the winning entries for their “Growing Gardens Today” competition.

So, growing your own food is a sustainable choice in your garden, and sustainability is “a good thing”, but ...

What exactly do we mean by sustainable?

A short while ago my local group of the Society of Garden Designers (Southampton Cluster Group - contact me for more information) were pleased to have Rosie Yeomans, a tutor in garden design & horticulture at Sparsholt College, and one of the presenters on Radio 4's "Gardeners' Question Time", lead our discussions on the subject. Rosie defined it very succinctly as “creating and managing a garden with as little input as possible”.


Aspects of sustainability from our discussions can be summarised as:

If you’re a gardener:

• garden organically – reliance on input of fossil-fuel-derived fertilisers & pesticides is not sustainable; use natural barrier methods to protect crops, not poisons;
  
• multiply your own plantstock from cuttings or seed – join a gardening club – swap with friends, family & neighbours;
  
• use mixed-species hedging, and allow natural undergrowth to develop, rather than keeping it "clean";
  
• conserve natural resources – compost your waste in a heap, rather than a plastic bin, of at least 1 cubic metre (they need air & water to work, and space to work around them) and use it to feed your soil; mulch to preserve moisture, suppress weeds & maintain soil structure;

Design decisions:

• change as much lawn as possible into more productive green space – meadows, shrubs & trees will give much better habitat / environmental benefits and need far less input;
  
• plant sensibly to fit the local climate & garden microclimate - avoid wasting resources on plants that don’t really belong – whether “native” or “exotic”;
  
• manage your rainwater, don’t flush it down the drain! Food crops, especially, need a high water input, so consider the movement & storage of rainwater in your design; use whatever elements of the rainwater chain you can (green roofs, rain cups/rain chains, storm-water planters, permeable surfaced paths & patios, rain gardens, swales, ponds & bog areas. You can see more rain garden information on my website .
  

The HESCO garden at the 2009 RHS Chelsea show, includes a short video clip describing how rainwater is managed through the features of the garden

If you have a pond, be careful what you plant in it, and especially what you do with any excess plant growth (or even water from emptying it) to prevent alien species from escaping into the natural environment where they can become invasive & destroy native ecosystems - for more information see the "Be Plant Wise" campaign endorsed by celebrity TV gardener Charlie Dimmock.

Materials choices:

• reuse existing hard landscape materials, so far as possible (eg using old paving as a base for a utility area such as beneath a shed);
• recycle materials where they can't be reused (eg breaking up old concrete or paving for use as part of the hardcore sub-base beneath new hard landscape);
• use reclaimed materials for new features, if possible (eg old stock bricks for garden walls & paths);
• use recyclable materials for new components (eg avoiding pressure-treated timber, which can't be chipped & composted at the end of its useful life);
• use locally-sourced materials to minimise transport energy input;
• use sustainably-managed resources (e.g. FSC-approved timber, alternatives to peat, etc);
  
  

The subject of sustainable materials used within a garden design is a tricky one.

Take, for example, decking - which is still an extremely useful & popular surface material in some contexts, despite the "yesterday's fashion" connotations. There are basically 3 "flavours" of decking:

• cheapest is pressure-treated softwood, which is relatively low energy to produce, usually comes from European, FSC-certified, sources where the forests are managed sustainably and shipping the timber to us doesn't need huge transport energy. But pressure-treatment uses non-sustainable chemicals, which prevents the timber from being recycled at the end of its 20-year-or-so lifetime. It probably also needs regular chemical re-treatment to keep it sound and looking good.
  
• hardwood, which is more expensive, but lasts longer - it doesn't need chemical treatment (except, maybe, for a plant-derived oil), is relatively low energy to produce (though the trees grow more slowly, so can't be replaced as quickly), but it mainly comes from tropical forests, so has high shipping energy and the forest management may not be FSC-assured. We certainly don't want to lose rain forests, but hardwood timber, without chemical treatments, has the advantage that it can be recycled at the end of its (much longer) lifetime.
  
• composite, which is manufactured from waste hardwood and recycled plastic, into boards that have the look and feel of hardwood timber, but which don't require any treatment for an extended lifetime, and won't rot, warp, split or splinter. They require energy to manufacture, but can be low transport costs (made in the UK), and have sustainable credentials through their use of otherwise waste materials and their long, treatment-free lifetime. They may well be the most expensive initially, but perhaps comparable when lifetime costs are considered.
  
  
  Sustainable, or "green", building materials is an extremely complex area!

For more information click here

There are many more elements to sustainability and, not surprisingly, it’s strongly linked to many of the topics I’ve previously written about:

• the fight against climate change
  
• helping to save the bees, and generally improving habitat for wildlife
  
• maintaining bio-diversity

Further information on sustainability in gardens & landscaping can be found here

If you'd like help taking further sustainable steps in your garden, but aren't sure how to go about it, call in a professional - me! http://www.blooming-good-gardens.co.uk/

If you enjoyed reading this article, and would like to subscribe to my regular updates, but aren't sure how to do it, click here

Green Roofs

Aiming to remain eco-aware in my design work I attended a course on green roofs recently, organised by the Brighton Permaculture Trust and Brighton and Hove Building Green. The tutors were Dusty Gedge and John Little, and we learned about the ethos and theory of living roofs, as well as the practicalities of construction. It was gratifying to meet people from many different countries, and many different disciplines, all of whom were interested in this topic.
Here are some photos of a community building and housing project we visited in Brighton.

What are green roofs?

For anyone who hasn’t heard of green roofs and the benefits they can bring, here’s just a very short introduction. The term refers to a flat or gently-pitched roof (usually less than 30 degrees) with a growing medium laid over a root-resistant waterproofing layer, which supports living plants. Whilst this may seem somewhat unusual to us in the UK, their use is increasing, with cities like Sheffield at the forefront and many others, including London & Brighton, adopting them for many of the situations listed below. They are a centuries-old tradition in Scandinavian countries, and they have been used for a long time in other European countries. Many countries, most notably Germany and many states in the USA, promote their use as part of their town & city planning laws – often requiring a percentage of green roof space as part of the conditions for granting development permission.

Why is this? What are the advantages?

Firstly, and most obviously, is the beneficial effect of adding extra “green space” for aesthetic and ecological purposes – especially in large cities where roof space can be over 75% of the geographical area. However - and here’s why they’re important for planners and commercial interests - they have solid economic benefits. Green roofs can increase the thermal insulation of roofs, resulting in lower energy requirements (and hence lower carbon footprints) for winter heating and summer cooling. The presence of the green roof can help to protect the waterproofing of the roof by removing exposure to UV radiation and reducing the temperature extremes encountered - which prolongs the life of the roof. The evapo-transpiration of the vegetation produces a cooling effect that mitigates the higher temperatures encountered in cities (the “urban heat-island” effect), improving the climate, reducing humidity, and lowering energy demand. The vegetation can also help improve air quality by filtering out contaminants and adding oxygen. Green roofs help to reduce both the volume and rate of rainwater run-off which needs to be managed during storms, giving economic benefits in reduced storm-water engineering requirements and costs.

Don’t they damage buildings and become a maintenance chore?

The answer is most definitely NO! Provided that the green roof is designed to be within the load-bearing capacity of the building and the root-protected waterproofing and drainage is properly addressed, an extensive green roof is very low maintenance.

There are several “flavours” of green roof, mainly associated with the depth and fertility of the soil (more properly, “substrate”) and hence the type of planting which will succeed. These are broadly grouped into:

1) Intensive: these have deep, fertile soil and the planting (perhaps even including trees) is very similar to that in a ground-level garden – in fact, they are more usually described as a roof garden. They require a very high level of maintenance, just as would a ground-level garden, and don’t offer much in the way of additional ecological benefit since the planting & habitat is so similar;

2) Extensive: these have relatively thin substrates – typically from 50mm (2”) to 200mm (8”) thickness and are deliberately of low fertility. In this way they provide very different conditions to ground-level gardens and are colonised by very different plants – mainly low-growing, drought-tolerant, nectar-rich flowering species, often & ideally native, which gives food & habitat to a wide range of insects & invertebrates, and the birds which feed on them. They are very low maintenance, and this form is what is normally meant by “green roof”;

3) Semi-intensive: refers to a compromise between these two extremes, where varying conditions are provided across the extent of a (reasonably large) roof space, such that a mix of habitat and planting can be used – even including food crops.

Where would an extensive green roof be used?

Around the home - on free-standing structures such as sheds, garages, summerhouses, garden offices, fuel tanks & bunkers, etc. or on parts of the main building such as flat-roofed houses or extensions to them;

At schools - they could be used on similar building structures, or for cycle shelters and outdoor shelters or classrooms, perhaps associated with school crop or wildlife gardens;

In Streets - they could be used for street furniture like bus stations and shelters, train platform covers, electricity sub-station roofs and so on;

For commercial properties - they could be used over factory units and warehousing, supermarkets and their trolley parks ... the list is endless!

You can find out more by visiting Livingroofs.org.

Article on Rain Gardens

I've just had a piece published in the local magazine about rain gardens. The gist of it was:
"We’re all aware of the village roads flooding after heavy storms and we’re constantly being told of climate change and its consequences.
You may not know about last autumn’s change in planning regulations, which means that anyone paving more than five square metres of front garden has to do so in a way that prevents rainwater running off onto the highway and, therefore, into the storm water drains. Estate and property developers now have to give consideration to rainwater management, including using SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems) to minimise the effects of rainwater during heavy downpours.
The intention of these new planning measures is to have as much rainwater as possible returned into the ground, where it can be soaked up and used by plants before naturally returning to brooks, streams and rivers. This allows the water to move in a delayed, slowed and cleaned manner, instead of as a deluge carrying pollutants from hard surfaces into the drainage system.
(You may think that this is only a problem for the cities, but consider the following small calculation. The population of the village is 2116; assuming an average of 4 people per household this gives 529 dwellings; if they are, on average, similar “roofprints” to my house, the rainwater falling on the village's roofs during a 2-hour heavy storm amounts to about 350,000 gallons (just over 1.5 million litres) – or enough to fill a 25m swimming pool 3 times over! OK, many dwellings will have soakaways instead of pouring this into the drainage system, but just imagine how much more water falls on roads, paths, drives, car parks, ...)
Whilst this new emphasis is a positive step, it still treats rainwater as a problem to be “managed”. Many people are now thinking differently, with rainwater being regarded as a resource. The established use of water butts connected to downpipes via diverters for use in the garden is increasing in popularity, although many of you will know how quickly a water butt is filled in a storm, still leaving the excess to flood into the drainage system. Some people have invested in larger rainwater “harvesting” systems, such as underground storage tanks beneath permeable-paved drives, although these are very expensive, and complex to install.
In their book “Rain Gardens” (Timber Press, 2007), Sheffield University’s Nigel Dunnett and Andy Clayden describe new concepts that combine environmental benefits and aesthetics where rainwater is not seen purely as a resource or as a problem, but is instead a visible, celebrated part of our gardens."

You can see a rain garden I recently designed here.