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Posted on 4:33 AM by Wanto and filed under
By Stephen Cassandra
The next priority is to decide how much space - if any - you want to devote to food growing, and to work out exactly where to site the vegetable plot and herb garden, if you want these areas.
A greenhouse naturally needs full sun, good access to it and preferably a hard surface area around it, as it soon becomes another centre of activity within the garden. if you can combine it with or site it next to the tool shed, or any other necessary small structure, so much the better. When wrongly sited, greenhouses can dominate the whole garden and, despite recent attempts to improve their appearance, they are seldom handsome structures. If the greenhouse cannot be a lean-to or an extension of the house, try to site the freestanding building, running east to west, to one side of the main view.
To give some indication of the amount of space which vegetables take up: an area of 84 sq m (300 sq ft) would provide a family of four with sufficient lettuces, runner beans, peas, carrots and turnips in summer, and with leeks, cabbages and sprouts in winter. But of course great pleasure can be obtained from growing your own produce, even if you do not have enough space to make the enterprise really economic, and the fresh taste of homegrown vegetables is reward in itself.
The type of vegetables you grow will dictate the size of the plot, and this will determine how near the house it can be. Potatoes, most root crops and fruit and vegetables which need forcing, such as rhubarb and chicory, all take a lot of space. Green vegetables, such as broccoli and spinach-which is useful since the 'perpetual' variety goes on and on-are often well worth growing. For a busy family with little spare time, it is perhaps best to concentrate on salad crops.
Ground cover such as heather or ivy is an alternative soft ground surfacing, especially over areas which are too small or steep for lawn but where you want to keep maintenance to a minimum. The use of ground cover need not be restricted to filling in spaces between beds or within beds. It can he employed to create bold areas of pattern, possibly combined with paving stones. At this stage in your planning there is no need to decide on the exact varieties of trees, shrubs and plants.
However, since all planting is important in drawing and directing the cyc, you should be thinking in terms of the approximate height and density of plant varieties; these should he selected for their overall impact in the design as much as for their purely horticultural interest. The width of beds and borders will obviously depend on the space you have, but bear in mind two general points. If beds or borders greatly exceed about two metres (a little over 6 ft) in width, it may prove difficult to hoe between the plants without trampling all over the bed. On the other hand, beds must be sufficiently wide to allow for an effective arrangement of plants. For example, if you want a herbaceous border which maintains a colour display for most of the year, you need enough space to arrange plants so that when one group stops flowering another takes its place.
A greenhouse naturally needs full sun, good access to it and preferably a hard surface area around it, as it soon becomes another centre of activity within the garden. if you can combine it with or site it next to the tool shed, or any other necessary small structure, so much the better. When wrongly sited, greenhouses can dominate the whole garden and, despite recent attempts to improve their appearance, they are seldom handsome structures. If the greenhouse cannot be a lean-to or an extension of the house, try to site the freestanding building, running east to west, to one side of the main view.
To give some indication of the amount of space which vegetables take up: an area of 84 sq m (300 sq ft) would provide a family of four with sufficient lettuces, runner beans, peas, carrots and turnips in summer, and with leeks, cabbages and sprouts in winter. But of course great pleasure can be obtained from growing your own produce, even if you do not have enough space to make the enterprise really economic, and the fresh taste of homegrown vegetables is reward in itself.
The type of vegetables you grow will dictate the size of the plot, and this will determine how near the house it can be. Potatoes, most root crops and fruit and vegetables which need forcing, such as rhubarb and chicory, all take a lot of space. Green vegetables, such as broccoli and spinach-which is useful since the 'perpetual' variety goes on and on-are often well worth growing. For a busy family with little spare time, it is perhaps best to concentrate on salad crops.
Ground cover such as heather or ivy is an alternative soft ground surfacing, especially over areas which are too small or steep for lawn but where you want to keep maintenance to a minimum. The use of ground cover need not be restricted to filling in spaces between beds or within beds. It can he employed to create bold areas of pattern, possibly combined with paving stones. At this stage in your planning there is no need to decide on the exact varieties of trees, shrubs and plants.
However, since all planting is important in drawing and directing the cyc, you should be thinking in terms of the approximate height and density of plant varieties; these should he selected for their overall impact in the design as much as for their purely horticultural interest. The width of beds and borders will obviously depend on the space you have, but bear in mind two general points. If beds or borders greatly exceed about two metres (a little over 6 ft) in width, it may prove difficult to hoe between the plants without trampling all over the bed. On the other hand, beds must be sufficiently wide to allow for an effective arrangement of plants. For example, if you want a herbaceous border which maintains a colour display for most of the year, you need enough space to arrange plants so that when one group stops flowering another takes its place.
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