Planning a garden

Understanding colour schemes from the colour wheel can greatly enhance your ability to create visually appealing designs and artwork. Colour can evoke both positive and negative feelings and emotions in the garden. If you’ve ever looked at a garden and found the colours jarring or awkward, the chances are the colour wheel has been ignored. […]

Improving your garden soil organically is essential for creating a thriving, sustainable garden, especially if you want to plant a variety of gorgeous plants, fruits, or vegetables. Without decent soil, no amount of planning, garden design or care will matter. Your gardens will struggle to succeed. The sad fact is that with new-build gardens in […]

Designing a garden for a rented property can be frustrating and confusing, especially since you don’t own the property or flat. For many renters and rental properties, the garden is ignored. Maybe a few lack-lustre container plants, pots, and many temporary bits and bobs. However, designing for a rental property can be far more enriching […]

Working out which direction a garden faces is one of the first things I do when I’m working on new garden designs. The garden aspect is a crucial part of garden planning. If you ignore the position of the sun in the garden you will struggle to find the correct plants. It also means you […]

Updated 2024: You may wonder what exactly prairie planting is and why it is now so fashionable. Well, the world-famous Piet Oudolf was one of the forerunners in bringing prairie borders to the masses. His creative designs featuring informal shapes block planted with the same species or colour have become his trademark. If you’re still […]

Updated 2024: The grow your own movement has really taken off over the past decade here in the UK, along with No Dig gardening. You only have to look online to see Instagrammers and social media full of grow-your-own tips. After all, who doesn’t want to be able to grow the food that they put […]

This small west-facing garden in Bolton, Greater Manchester, had frustrated its owner due to its lack of privacy and clay soil. She had tried her best but ended up with a bit of a tangle of odd shapes, dying plants and patchy borders. She called Lee Burkhil, the Garden Ninja, to help sort it out […]

Updated 2024: When it comes to garden design for children, you may have seen gardens simply turned into playgrounds with wood chips everywhere. There are ways to subtly design a garden that makes it exciting for children without completely removing the attraction for grown-ups! Usually, people start by buying a massive set of play equipment […]

Do you sometimes look out into your garden and feel disappointed that it looks empty or all crammed in for a few fleeting moments? Does your garden seem to run away with itself and be a firework that goes off once a year and then fizzles? If this sounds like your garden, you must join […]

Shrubs play a vital role in the garden’s aesthetic by providing structure and texture to help connect your gardens planting scheme. They also offer a home for wildlife and ensure that any garden design has a good grounding with what we garden designers call ‘punctuation’ (the ability to break up an eyeliner with shrubs or […]