Your guide to designing a beautiful garden

Designing a garden doesn't have to require a heap of technical knowledge. Bear these basic gardening tips in mind and you'll have a smartly planned and beautiful garden.

Perhaps the most challenging — and rewarding — aspect of plant architecture is combining different shapes into a compatible grouping.

• Pairing strongly divergent profiles, such as a soaring pyramid and prostrate "fan," makes for dynamic contrast, whereas pairing related shapes, such as an egg and a globe or an umbrella and a bowl, results in a soft, harmonious design.
• When you begin looking at plants as architectural elements, you'll find yourself seeing your landscape—and those of your neighbours—in a whole new way!

A bed backed by a wall, hedge or fence is the ideal setting for a border.

• A border can be described best as a bed that comes forward from the backdrop, with the plants in the bed arranged in decreasing height from back to front.
• This design gives an unobstructed view of all the plants and lets each one receive sun.
• But be flexible: the occasional short plant tucked behind a tall one may provide appealing texture and make the bed more beautiful.

• Group large plants in threes and smaller ones in fives or sevens. Odd numbers of plants look more natural than even-numbered groupings.
• Only a specimen plant used as a special accent should be planted singly.

• Plan for a long season of bloom, but limit your colour choices to three main colours (such as pink, yellow and blue; or red, white and blue).
• Include neutral white bloomers or plants with gray foliage to help offset potential clashes.

Just as a border includes a backdrop, it also needs a defined front edge to provide a sense of containment.

• In addition to small, mound-forming plants, include a hard edge if the border adjoins lawn. Edging materials made from concrete, plastic or composite wood are efficient but can be costly.
• You'll save by choosing natural stones, brick pavers or recycled brick instead.

For a charming, old-fashioned border, use this simple and inexpensive technique.

• Insert sturdy 30- to 40-centimetre wood stakes every 15 centimetres along the edge of your border.
• Interlace the uprights with pliable vines or willow stems to create a lattice. The resulting trellis makes an especially complementary background and support for climbers, runner beans, strawberries and herbs.