Garden Design
Garden design ideas and planting plans for UK gardens — cottage borders, rain gardens, low-maintenance and small-space schemes. Each guide pairs a clear design with real, plantable suggestions from our encyclopedia.
Creating a Rain Garden
12 June 2026A rain garden is a shallow, planted dip in the lawn or border that catches roof and paving runoff, lets it soak into the ground, and filters it through plant roots on the way down. In a UK garden it…
Garden DesignHow to Attract Birds to Your Garden
12 June 2026A garden with birds is a working garden. They eat aphids, caterpillars, slugs and snails; they pollinate as they forage; and they tell you, quickly, when something in your patch is out of balance.…
Garden DesignBest Climbing Plants for UK Walls and Fences
12 June 2026A bare fence or blank wall is wasted growing space. Choose the right climber and that same square metre of garden becomes flowers from May to October, shelter for nesting birds, a windbreak for the…
Garden DesignPlanting a Shady Border
11 June 2026A shady border is the bit of garden everyone calls "the difficult patch" — the north-facing wall, the strip under the hedge, the side return nobody walks down. Planted badly, it stays bare or fills…
Garden DesignDesigning a Wildlife Pond
11 June 2026A well-designed wildlife pond is the single most powerful feature you can add to a UK garden. It pays back faster than almost any other planting project: dragonflies arrive in the first summer, frogs…
Garden DesignGravel Gardens Explained
11 June 2026A gravel garden is a sun-baked, free-draining border where drought-tolerant perennials, silver-leaved Mediterranean shrubs and self-seeding annuals grow through a 5–7 cm mulch of decorative gravel…
Garden DesignSmall Garden Design Ideas
11 June 2026A small UK garden is not a problem to be hidden, it is a brief to be designed well. With the right plant choices and a clear layered structure, a border of just 4 metres by 5 metres can deliver…
Garden DesignDesigning a Cottage Garden
11 June 2026A traditional English cottage garden is not really a "style" — it is a way of planting. Roses flop into the path, foxgloves seed themselves between the delphiniums, lavender edges the path, and…
Garden DesignCreating a Herb Garden
11 June 2026A working herb garden is one of the most rewarding designs a small UK plot can carry. Within roughly 4 m² you can grow the culinary herbs you actually cook with — sage, rosemary, thyme, parsley,…