When it comes to the layout and planting of our gardens, most of us have fixed ideas about how things should be done. Perhaps it was the way our childhood garden was arranged (large lawn with pencil-thin flowerbeds around the edges, anyone?), or something we’ve read in a book or seen on a TV show.
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Garden designers also frequently have a set of rules they were taught on their course which it can take years of experience to build up the courage to break. But when it comes to good design, thinking outside the box can pay off.
7 Garden design rules you can break
Rule #1: You must have a lawn if you have kids
Many of us believe children need mown grass to play on, but there are plenty of alternatives to exercise little minds and bodies at the same time as being more sustainable. London-based garden designer Tom Massey says clients often believe a lawn is essential in a family garden, but he insists it’s not the only way. “We’ve designed family gardens where the central space is a rich, immersive planting scheme, or a functioning rain garden – both offering opportunities for interaction, play and learning in a more ecologically generous way than a flat patch of turf,” he says.
Camellia Taylor, whose design practice The Garden Taylor is based in the Kent countryside, agrees. “There’s the persistent idea that a family garden needs a lawn,” she says, “but most children just want somewhere to hide, dig or climb. I often suggest wild patches, landforms, or a mini meadow with mown paths, it’s more engaging, and far less maintenance.”
Sussex-based landscape designer Joe Perkins adds: “I often try to encourage clients to think more creatively about spaces for play and relaxation. A lawn can be high maintenance and often underused - instead, we’ve created gardens with more naturalistic planting, informal paths and open clearings among grasses or meadow-style planting that children can explore and interact with far more playfully than a flat expanse of turf. It also promotes biodiversity and requires less watering and mowing.”
Rule #2: Tall plants go at the back of the border
On paper, it makes sense to position taller plants at the back of a border, but breaking this rule can often have greater visual impact. “Mixing heights throughout a border can bring a much more dynamic and immersive experience,” says Joe Perkins. “It encourages people to engage with the garden from different angles and adds depth and movement to the space.” In a recent coastal garden he designed, they used tall umbellifers such as Selinum wallichianum close to paths, so they brush against you as you pass by, and the clients often comment how it brings the garden to life.
Tom Massey believes that while relegating tall plants to the back of a bed can work in formal or static schemes, in more naturalistic planting it can feel restrictive. “Allowing taller species to weave their way through a scheme helps break down the visual hierarchy and adds moments of surprise, contributing to a sense of depth and atmosphere that feels far more alive,” he says.
Rule #3: Always plant in groups of three or five
For years, garden design courses have been teaching students to plant in groups of three or five, the theory being that odd numbers mimic how plants grow in nature. Richard Miers, whose garden design portfolio ranges from smart London gardens to larger country gardens, thinks we shouldn’t get too hung up on numbers. “Plants don’t grow like that,” he says. “I can do a group of one or a group of four, depending on the space available.”
Garden and landscape designer Darryl Moore prefers to look at how plants evolve in natural communities which have adapted to their environments over time. He says: “I use a matrix scheme layout with a fairly even distribution of species throughout, creating different layers from ground cover through perennials of different sizes to shrubs and trees, depending on the site conditions. It avoids planting in groups of three, five or larger blocks of one species, which are problematic if they fail for any reason, as they will then leave empty spaces, where unwanted spontaneous competitive plants will colonise. Instead, intermingled species create more resilient communities, and complexity for habitat for other forms of biodiversity.”
Another design trick is to plant in drifts, but Camellia Taylor believes the idea that big, repeated blocks of the same plant are essential for impact is misguided. “Repetition is important - it brings rhythm and coherence - but it isn’t everything. I often find that a looser, more intuitive planting style, with self-seeders and spontaneous combinations, can bring a sense of life and surprise that more rigid schemes sometimes lack,” she says.
Rule #4: The patio should be right outside the back door
While at first glance it might seem convenient, garden designer Charlotte Rowe warns that placing an outdoor dining table and chairs immediately outside the back door can end up looking ridiculous. “If the access to the garden from the house has a dining table close to it, the last thing you want to do is have another four legs and a top right the other side of the glass,” she says.
When deciding where to put a garden table, Richard Miers advises looking at where the sun is. “You want to sit in the sun in winter, shade in summer,” he says. “When are you using it? In the daytime or evening? Is the back of the house north facing? If so, you want to move it away from there.”
There is also a commonly held belief that plants should be kept at a distance from the house with a barrier of paving, but many designers are starting to challenge this by bringing plants, shrubs and even small trees right up to the house. Tom Massey argues that greenery can soften the architecture. “A classic example I come back to often is the standard paving zone that wraps around the rear of a house,” he says. “Instead of defaulting to hard landscaping right up against the building, I prefer to bring planting closer to the threshold.”
Rowe agrees that we need to challenge the tyranny of the patio. “We often disobey the rule about putting things close to the house and creating a large patio. You need to bring the garden into the house and one of the ways we do that is dropping into a terrace area what I suppose would have been called a planting island.”
She points out that small and medium-sized gardens are seen from inside for much of the year. One of the things you can do to bring the garden into the house is to plant a small specimen tree with blossom in spring or autumn colour somewhere it can be seen from a door or window, while making sure the roots don’t undermine drains.
Rule #5: Gardens need year-round wow factor
Garden design courses often emphasise the need for year-round colour and ‘wow’. But Marian Boswall, garden designer and author of The Kindest Garden, thinks it is better to plan a garden around the natural rhythms of nature. “At certain times of season or in different areas of a garden, we can revel in the yang energy of vibrant colours, dramatic textures and bold shapes and in others we can co-create with nature’s more yin energy when we are quieter and go within. By working with a restful palette of materials plants and layout, every nuance of texture, tiny shape and drop of subtle colour becomes a focus of a softer gaze,” she says.
Many of us think we need to make a statement in our gardens, with a sculpture, water wall or dramatic tree to draw the eye down the garden. But Camellia Taylor argues that subtle textures and quiet structure have just as much impact. “Often, it’s the subtle textures, seasonal shifts and quiet structure that bring lasting richness. Not every garden needs a showstopper. Sometimes the plants are the story,” she says.
Rule #6: Gardens should be symmetrical
It is tempting to think our outdoor spaces need to be symmetrical, but asymmetry can be more effective, says Tom Massey. “Axial design and strong structure are often seen as essential, even in spaces where they feel imposed. But asymmetry tends to create more dynamic, natural-feeling gardens that are simply more enjoyable to move through. The goal isn’t to mirror; it is to achieve a balance of visual weight and rhythm that feels intuitive rather than prescribed.”
Hugo Bugg of landscape design practice Harris Bugg Studio adds that when drawing curves, the traditional approach is to use set radii and arc lengths. However, he believes this can interfere with the natural flow of a garden. “Increasingly, I prefer to create more organic, free-form curves, setting them out using a grid. This allows the garden to feel far more intuitive and connected to its context, while still being practical to build,” he says.
Rule #7: You need at least one-third hard landscaping
Garden designer Catriona Rowbotham, course director on The English Gardening School’s garden-design diploma, says the received wisdom on the proportion of hard to soft landscaping is that it should be around 30 per cent to 70 per cent, but she believes this can be misleading. In a town garden, there is likely to be more hard landscaping, while in a large country garden, soft landscaping will dominate.
“We strongly encourage students to carefully consider how much hard landscaping they use and to use it judiciously,” she says, “both to save costs for their clients and because the hard landscaping is likely to be the least sustainable part of any garden design.”
Instead, they put an emphasis on working planting design into permeable materials. Examples from her own work include a front garden where she has included Erigeron karvinskianus and thyme between the clay paver 'paths' to the side of the permeable gravel driveway, again with Sagina subulata between the wheel tracks. The client was so pleased with the result they now rarely park in their off-street space.
The one garden design rule that should never be broken…
Keep it simple
When clients are paying for a professional garden design, there is a temptation to cram in as much as possible. Rowe recalls one client who asked for a breakfast bar, a fireplace, an outdoor shower and daybeds in a small urban garden. “Honestly, the word hot tub just sends shivers of horror down my spine, because they always look hideous,” she adds. The answer, she insists, is to ‘keep it simple’ and not to reveal everything at once, but to create a journey that will draw people out into the garden.
When designers first meet with clients, they usually compile a list of what they want to use the garden for, but Hugo Bugg believes that the feel of a garden is more important. “I start by imagining how the garden will feel and how it will be planted,” he explains, “thinking deeply about atmosphere, emotion and sense of place. Only after establishing this, do we carve out paths, spaces and client requirements, resulting in a truly planting-led design rather than one that feels overly constrained by function.”