Hi All, sorry for the question not being strictly homes, but it is related and the 2 do I suppose go hand in hand. Does anyone have any ideas for my garden for my new house that we have just built, the problem being is that is about 30 metres wide and just 10 metres deep. I need some trees at the back to sheild the overlooking houses (don't worry it will be us that the sunshine will effect slightly in the evening) but the problem is, all design programs focus on making a long garden appear wider, my problem is the opposite. can anyone advise?
I have a book of garden designs which addresses this problem among others. What they suggest (from memory) is that you create a curved lawn which is effectively a semi oval, about 25m wide by 9m deep, and have shrub / flower borders between the lawn and the fence. In the garden design in the book, they sectioned off part of the width of the garden with trellis at an angle to the fence and had a vegetable garden behind it.
Flowers in 'Hot' colours are supposed to look closer to you and 'cool' colours are supposed to look further away - so you can have blues and whites at the close bit of the flower borders and yellows and reds in the further bits of the flower borders.
I’m a sucker for the painterly use of colour, so essential reading would be “Gertrude Jekyll’s Colour Schemes for the Flower Garden”, Frances Lincoln Pub., 2001; “The Gardens of Gertrude Jekyll”, Richard Bisgrove, Frances Lincoln Pub., 1992; and you might like to consider the Arts & Crafts style of Garden, “Gertude Jekyll and the Arts and Crafts Garden”, G. Jekyll & L. Weaver, Garden Art Press, 1997; “Gardens of the Arts and Crafts Movement”, J. Tankard, Harry N. Adams, 2004; and “Arts and Crafts Gardens”, Wendy Hitchmough, V&A Publications, 2005.
