The most common garden design mistakes – and how to avoid them

Gardens are mysterious creatures, capable of thrilling highs that induce heart-swelling pride and joy but also the reverse – devastating disappointment when that plant cutting you have lovingly nurtured gets nipped by Jack Frost, or those bulbs you’ve been longing for don’t quite deliver the bang you’d anticipated. Gardens can make you feel like the luckiest person in the world, revelling in the quiet privilege of witnessing cow parsley shimmer on a perfect May day in your own little paradise. They can also cause heart-ache and confusion and feel overwhelming in their complexity and variety.

But ask any gardener, and they will knowingly remind you that the mistakes are part of the process, and above all gardens are great teachers. Teachers of patience, of careful observation, and of our place in the world. Whilst there is no replacement for learning on the job, getting things wrong can be costly – to your bank balance, to your confidence and to the environment. Much of this lies in good foundations – as with everything from a pension to a party, planning and preparation is key, not just for the design but the overall health of the garden.

Mistake 1: ignoring your soil

Designer Marian Boswall suggests that your first port of call should be soil, the true foundation of the garden, it can’t be over-estimated. “Get a bokashi bin, learn how to create fabulous compost or buy a bio-complete compost to inoculate your soil with a wonderful workforce of underground gardeners, sources include Compost Club from Michael in Lewes or the Land Gardeners. Plants live 30 percent below ground so it’s not just what we can see that counts”. Wherever your garden is, improving the soil will not only give whatever you later choose to plant the best start, but it has myriad other benefits too. By feeding your soil, you’re improving its ability to retain moisture and mitigate drought, charging it with the kind of microbial activity Tim Spector would be proud of, whilst also finding an outlet for lots of your food waste.

Mistake 2: not having enough water

Next up, water. If you’re new to gardens (especially if you’re planning one in a wet winter when water doesn’t seem to be a resource that could ever be in short supply), it’s easy to overlook access to water in the garden. Some gardens can be designed and planned to need very little but most will need some. Where is it going to come from? Designer Tom Massey, who is doing a garden at RHS Chelsea this year with architect Je Ahn in aid of WaterAid, recommends disconnecting our downpipes from gutters and rerouting them into water-harvesting systems. It’s inefficient to allow all that rainwater run out into the sewage system. This could just be a water-butt which is as simple as it is effective, or it could be a raingarden or planter that collects water and allows it to dissipate at a much slower pace, easing the pressure on the system.