Tips to make garden look wider

[LIZS]

We have someone working on part of our garden , clearing years of weeds and dead tree stumps. As he is working his way down it looks wider. Area is approximately 120' long by 30'max width. Bearing in mind it is a fairly blank canvas apart from the odd shrub and we already have a functional garden nearer the house with patio and grass, separated by a fence at the moment from the area beign worked on, are there any tips to visually try and make it seem wider. Is it worth segmenting the new part so that, say, the bottom third is a play area designated in a different ground finish to rest. Not sure if curves of path/beds/features would be better than straight lines across iyswim

IIRC, yes, curving in an S-shape makes it look bigger.

spookycharlotte121 is just finishing a landscape design degree, but I haven't seen her around today

We put a curving sort of lazy-S shape flower bed in and the effect was instant.

This year I am reducing mowing areas, so have built myself a patio 5 slabs wide along one side of the garden and to me (and family) it seems wider, but I wouldn't swear to this effect. (Also it was damn hard work, took me weeks, but it does look good and I am down to less than 15 minutes mowing a fortnight!)

Maybe try one of those websites where you can work on a 'model' - put different areas in. Sorry I can't think of one, maybe search 'garden planning'.

Designing on a diagonal makes a long thin garden look wider - either with sweeping curves, or with geometric beds.

The BBC website has a virtual garden here which might help your design work.

The other thing you can do is divide the garden up into sections or 'rooms' so that you don't see all the length of the garden at once. You can do with screens such as trellis, or planting.

Thansk for those tips, funnily the top section already has a vague sweep to it so that gives me some idea and I'll give the bbc one a go.

Blurring the boundaries helps too, e.g. painting fences green, planting trees & shrubs etc. We have a very long and very narrow garden; breaking it up into sections (as someone already suggested) has really helped make it feel bigger.

Maybe get a very skinny statue?

Hazing can be successful in cases like these.

But make sure you use shrubs that stagger themselves naturally. It also helps to rake through the bark mulch in a kind of laissez faire manner (is that right?).

I like the hazing idea Syc...

BitOfFun, my friend has something very similar in her garden, well she has three!! They are right at the back of a very long garden, and at first glance, they really do make the garden look wider!

I notice the OP says her garden already has a vague sweep - i would place the statues up there.

big words there shiney... conducive!

I'm not being funny Diamond but do you actually even have a garden?

J shape is not active. It's entirely dormant through most of the summer planting months.

If you HAD a garden you would KNOW that.

Some lovely ideas here girls

You're fingers are so not green they are like, RED or something.

Go google Percy Thrower then maybe you'll be able to contribute something constructive.

Syc.. that was uncalled for! Shiney is just trying her best

3 tiered segmented areas with a diagonal feature across each area will work. Perhaps, a diagonal (or J shaped as per Shineon's suggestion) in the first segment, a floral in the second and some childrens play strcture in the 3rd.

naaa like shineys idea. change the letter according to the man of the month

bringing about?