ARTY TRICKS
You can enhance the look of your garden with simple features, says Leigh Bramwell, and it doesn’t cost
IF THERE’S ONE THING I’ve learned in 20-odd years of creative gardening, it’s that wall-to-wall planting is not necessarily a good look. In some places, perhaps, but not everywhere.
When we first bought this empty two acres we thought we’d never get it filled up, so we planted like crazy. Now, we’re at the point where everything has grown about four times as big as we expected and, yes, we’ve got the wall-to-wall plant look.
The Landscaper has been judiciously trimming, lopping and in some cases euthanasing in an effort to give the garden some breathing space, and plants we’d forgotten we had are emerging from the undergrowth to be appreciated.
I’m loving the look of space in the garden. It creates a visual respite from fullon foliage, and it allows you to potter around adding pots, pieces of sculpture, driftwood or whatever takes your fancy.
I'm extremely good at pottering around, especially if what I'm pottering around with doesn't take too long. Being A Person Of Extraordinarily Short Attention Span, I've become an expert in creating simple garden features, often without spending more than half an hour or any money.
At the back of the house in the no-man’s land that will become a shady courtyard one day, I have a collection of items that can be put together somewhere in the garden to create a focal point or point the way to a special shrub or tree.
My go-to solution is the “put a container there” trick — a cool pot, with or without a plant, immediately becomes a focal point among the plants and can lift an area that's dull or colourless. So don't chuck out old terracotta pots — either sand them back for a vintage look, or give them a bespoke paint finish. If you don't want to put a living plant in your pot but it needs some height, stuff it with dried seed pods, dead eucalyptus branches or an interesting piece of driftwood.
If you have collections of bottles, jugs or ornaments, display them as a set. I once forced The Landscaper to drink several pints of beer (not all in one sitting) that came in off-white ceramic bottles so I could do exactly that. No, I don't think it would work with Heineken cans.
My favourite thing to collect is shells. I’ve always loved paua shells and I have groups of them all through the garden. The trunks of the palm trees in the courtyard garden are ringed with scallop shells, and there are groups of big, tropical shells atop walls and alongside paths.
A good rule when it comes to setting up styled displays in a garden area is to create a base for them. Don't just plonk them on the dirt. Use a paver, a decking tile, stone chip or crushed shell underneath them and they’ll have more of a presence.
Aim for a contrast between your materials — a few broken pieces of concrete stood on end may not look fabulous on their own, but twist up a piece of aluminium garden edging and position it alongside and you'll create a piece of art.
One of my most useful collections of junk has been a stack of lightweight concrete blocks we saved after demolishing a garden wall. They’ve been used in a number of locations around the garden thus far.
At this point you're probably lamenting the fact that you don't have a collection of inspirational items in the garden shed just waiting to become an exhibition piece. But if you have old concrete blocks, a lichencovered rock, some old fenceposts or even a rusted out metal bucket, you're good to go.