Garden - open or split into sections - WWYD?

[lovethebeach]

Hi all I've had a little look on this topic and some of your gardens look lovely so I'm hoping for some good advice
When we moved into our house about four years ago the garden was really bare it was literally a patio, grass, fences all around and two sheds at the end. It's a decent size probably about 100' by about 40'. Very tidy but no colour whatsoever.
We're very amateur at gardening so don't really know what we're doing but we have dug and planted some borders, put an arch in the middle and tried to grow things up it and put some bamboo between the arch and the borders but with large gaps in between.
It still doesn't look like a really nice garden though and I'd love it to. I wondered if we would be better planting all the way across and just having the arch to go through so the garden would be split into two separate sections or not? I'll try and post some pics. Really hoping for some inspiration and advice as to how we can make it look nicer. We don't have a huge budget which is why we've been doing it a bit at a time. I can happily take criticism if it's constructive ☺️

These are what it looks like now...

before...

Oops - before...

Ooh, I am envious of your garden lovethebeach. What a great size.

I am NOT a garden designer but here's what I would work towards......based on previous experience/research/own garden issues, all ongoing!

• Take out the bamboo! (it spreads SO rapidly and will eat up your garden space. Stick it back in in a pot if you really like it)

• Take out the long garden path? This is what I am hoping to do here. My favourite gardens have been those that are zoned/split into different stages, so that you wind your way around the place, exploring and gradually getting to the end

• Scribble out a rough plan (back of wallpaper?) and map in where the sun is. We found ours in the evening was right at the bottom of the garden, so created a cosy seating space down there which is a beautiful fragrant suntrap.

• Build in spaces for wildlife? Pond, bee/butterfly gardens, compost etc

• Fruit trees? Veg beds? Seating areas, rockeries etc

Sorry, I should really have asked what sort of person you are first, what you want from your garden and how much maintenance you want to spend on it afterwards!

You have so much potential there. Start a Pinterest page and pin little snapshots of other people's ideas then add to your map.

Finally, check your soil type and plants you put in. I wasted my early days planting things that weren't happy where I wanted them to go. Durr.

Good luck!

AND I forgot to ask your budget!

I do like a bit of privacy in my garden, so would also look to put in trees/shrubs/native wild hedgerow (food for birds) down the sides. We have used dwarf fruit trees so as not to lose too much sunlight. (Our garden is not as generously sized as yours!). I was going to espalier them but missed the moment

We also have a copper beech hedgerow which turns all sorts of colours through the seasons and makes up for the lack of my successful colour planting through the seasons.

Can you tell, I am an ideas person, who hasn't quite got the time and money (& mobility) to get out there and do my own garden?!! I enjoy the dreaming though and we are making slow progress.

Lovely potential, a gardener's dream! I agree with what AAA has said, especially removing the straight path.
I'd create rooms and take the pathway across those rooms. Definitely try to get veg, pond and wildlife areas. The pergola is great, but you could extend it across the garden and grow a vine and roses over it, with long lasting flowering planting underneath, such as hydrangeas.
Possibly look to a solar powered water feature near your sitting area.
Have a search on Pinterest for some ideas.

Yes you need more curves and borders etc. Make the path so that It meanders down the garden and put curved borders along the side. Break up the straight lines. Where you've put the archway you could put a Border from the archway to the side fence and fill it with taller plants. Make a patio for sitting maybe a circle. Then when you walk through the garden you won't see everything at once.

No advice but love your garden!

Love your garden, and agree with others, a curved path would work wonders. If you can't replace the whole thing at once, then just do from the house up to the arch. Or, from the arch down to the bottom.

You could put in some beds and planting on the bends so you can't see all the way down the path at once. Create some more focal points. It will give the illusion of a much bigger garden (even though it is big already), as the current straight path gives the effect of foreshortening it because the focal point is currently the lovely sheds right at the far end of the path

Definitely make the path windy. My colleague showed me pics of her garden yesterday, they have a lovely "room" at the bottom, with all sun loungers and that, it looks so private and pretty!

And get that bamboo out! Evil evil fucking stuff!

I love the big tree on the right, beyond your garden. Maybe move the shed thing aside, and use the big tree as a focal point to draw the eye up and out?

Looking at trees is so good for your head.

The arch might be nice off-centre, perhaps? Make sure wherever it is, there's something nice beyond it (is that a statue on the left?) Something you really like looking at, as the arch will make you look at it more. Maybe the dog, as the ultimate obedience test. STAY!

Ooh!

Definitely bamboo out, today, now. Every shred of root.

Write a list of everything you want to do and have in the garden - football, lie in sun, grow veg, dry washing, store stuff, keep chickens, look at beautiful plants and smell lovely smells, have a jungle, whatever.

Draw a rough plan of the garden to scale and mark in north and any permanent fixtures then post it back here grin

Regarding that long straight central path - you could take it out, but alternatively you could use it as the basis for a lovely corridor that draws the eye down to the end of the garden. You'd need something lovely to look at at the end (not a shed!) and I'd have very deep borders either side and at least a stretch of pergola/arch to make a flowering tunnel to walk through. Then the spaces either side into sections to do what you want with. Just a thought.

Wow! a blank canvas...how lovely.
I think I'd be tempted into doing an online garden design course. Lots of good ideas already. Personally I prefer gardens that can be explored via several routes rather than one main pathway.

We have a similar garden.
I broke up the path and removed it. (Took a week largely because of the schlep up the garden and through the house.) Garden looks much wider without.
Would break the garden up into "rooms" if I were you. More interesting to look at. We're still working on levelling ours off, but my plan is to do this with hedging.
Then want to plant a number of trees and borders to make it section feel different to the others. Pergola half-way down (to try and widen the garden) is on my list too!
Probably should be embarrassed to admit it, but Alan Titchmarsh's Garden Design book is where I've got my ideas from. Pinterest fab too.

Take the arch out it looks strange and a bit plonked there.

I'd actually take the path out completely and just have it lawned. Then I'd have the lawn edged, maybe a more fluid shape and put lots of plants and shrubs round all the borders. Something like these.

Love the dog. By the way,,,

Take into consideration do you need football pitch for DCs, do you need bbq area, direction of sun at different times of day. How much work you want ongoing.
Look at neighbours gardens for ideas and what grows well.
Remove path and screen sheds unless they are likely to be broken into - lawn mowers etc are a lucrative item to sell on!

Wow so many replies thank you so much for all your helpful suggestions and comments. I do agree we need to somehow screen the sheds. We can't really move the arch without smashing it up as we have cemented it in which is why I think we need to plant all the way across. I hate the path it looks horrible and would much prefer just grass or maybe stepping stones around the side or something?
@Bluntness100 I really like those photos, the one on the right is absolutely stunning I'd love our garden to look like that!

I would keep the arch, and plant a hedge across the middle of the garden to break it into two. Then you'd have a secret garden at the top end! In the top garden you could have raised beds, or a children's play area, a seating area, a wildlife pond, anything you like! You could keep the path at the top end of the garden beyond the arch and edge it with lavender or catmint. It would be nice to have a seating area at the end of the path, even just a simple bench as a focal point.

Your near garden could be more ornamental, with shrubs and flower borders the benefit of screening the top end is that you wouldn't see the sheds and workaday stuff of the garden like compost bins etc.

Have you thought about getting a small tree or two? Agree with others about getting rid of the bamboo.

pinterest.com/pin/405112928956171797/?source_app=android

pinterest.com/pin/341640321707171229/?source_app=android

Thanks for the Pinterest links @tittysprinkles that lavender path looks lovely. My thought was to plant things either side of the arch to the border that was the main reason for the bamboo but now looking at it it doesn't really look very attractive especially now I've planted a small conifer next to it that does (look attractive.)
Now my ndn has confused me because she says it will make the garden look like it's a small garden by planting all the way across and it would look better open. I've read that it's good to split your garden into rooms and then it looks like there's always more to look at...😳

We do have a couple of small trees we have a miniature weeping willow that you can see through the arch from the kitchen window, we had a flamingo tree but that died when we moved it. We also have an olive tree in a pot which I had thought about putting near the end of the garden as a focal point but we couldn't see it lol so have put near the house.

I think it'd look far better "open" and that the arch should go!

How would you like your garden to be? And what would it be used for? If you split it into rooms, what would you use each room for? Have you got children? What are their needs? Do they like footballing? Or hide and seek, or tree climbing? How much time have you got for gardening? Would you like to grow flowers or fruit and veg? Do you do any entertaining - do you need a barbecue area etc?

Sometimes it really helps to write down everything you want, and do a few ariel plans of the garden, adding in features in different places.

With regards to dividing it, it can often make a garden seem bigger, as the eye is drawn to the foreground and other interesting features. An opening in a hedge can create a bit of mystery. You will also have 2 aspects to consider - the view from the house towards the top of the garden, and the view from the top of the garden toward the house.

An alternative is to leave it open, but to have curved borders towards the middle which draw the eye inwards, and that can make the garden seem longer paradoxically. At the moment, the eye is drawn straight to the top of the garden, as apart from the bamboo and the arch, the only planting towards the middle is the grass lawn, which is effectively a monoculture and not the most interesting thing to look at on its own.

I'm not a garden designer btw! But I have spent a lot of time this year designing my own garden so have done lots of reading. I did decide to break up my garden with a hedge across the middle and it's great (albeit it's not as wide as your garden). I feel it makes the garden seem bigger, plus we now almost have a second garden that feels shut off from the house, with a different feel and theme to the rest of the garden.

My garden is split though the middle with very open trellis to make two rooms and I love it, the veg patch, trampoline, sheds etc... are out of view. Strangely, my cutting the garden in half it has actually made it look bigger and wider because you can see there is extra garden but can't focus your perspective.

@tittysprinkles a @Enb76 yes that was the thought behind the middle boundary. My children are grown up although still at home we mainly use the garden for sitting in, BBQs , entertaining and playing with the dog. I'd love it to look nice and colourful most the year round and just to look like a nice garden it just feels like it doesn't at the moment. We have put some borders in which I'm fairly pleased with. I think maybe I'm a bit impatient and want it all to look wonderful when in fact a lot of gardens are a work in progress. I would love to see photos of your gardens please if you wouldn't mind so I can imagine what it would look like with plants all the way across.

This is the view up one side where we have planted.