Formal Garden Guidelines
Formal gardens are a pretty simple affair! In a formal garden symmetry and structure are the key elements with hedging creating the majority of its form based on pre-existing and constructed hard landscaping features such as paths, walls and buildings. When planting and designing a formal garden the tape measure is your best friend. Planting needs to be done in straight lines or circles with even spacing to allow the plants to fill out and form the desired shapes you wish to create. Often double hedges are used to introduce character at different times of the year with a taller hedge at the back and a smaller, usually flowering hedge in front.
When deciding on spacing for hedging two main considerations need to be taken into account.
1) How quickly and how dense do I want my hedge to form?
The growing width of each hedging plant will give you the plant spacing for a hedge that will form after about 5 years. Halving the spacing will half the time it takes and will make the hedge a lot denser a lot quicker.
2) How big do I want my hedges to be?
The grown height of a given hedging plant is not necessarily the limiting factor for the height of your hedge. The height of the plants is based on 7-10 years of growing in nutrient rich soil. This value for hedging is a good marker for how fast a plant will grow with the taller hedging plants growing faster then the shorter varieties.
Once the bordering and general shape of the formal garden is set with hedging the rest is usually block planted with smaller shrubs and bushes that require low maintenance and can act as weed suppressant once fully grown if spaced correctly (the plants growing width). Ground cover is also used, being intermingled with the shrubs and bushes.
When deciding on spacing for hedging two main considerations need to be taken into account.
1) How quickly and how dense do I want my hedge to form?
The growing width of each hedging plant will give you the plant spacing for a hedge that will form after about 5 years. Halving the spacing will half the time it takes and will make the hedge a lot denser a lot quicker.
2) How big do I want my hedges to be?
The grown height of a given hedging plant is not necessarily the limiting factor for the height of your hedge. The height of the plants is based on 7-10 years of growing in nutrient rich soil. This value for hedging is a good marker for how fast a plant will grow with the taller hedging plants growing faster then the shorter varieties.
Once the bordering and general shape of the formal garden is set with hedging the rest is usually block planted with smaller shrubs and bushes that require low maintenance and can act as weed suppressant once fully grown if spaced correctly (the plants growing width). Ground cover is also used, being intermingled with the shrubs and bushes.
