Garden that angles away from house...
Hi folks, I have been struggling with the layout of my garden for months and wondering if anyone has anything similar or feedback on my ideas.
Our garden is a typical long narrow one (8m-ish wide and almost 30m long) - but the main issue is that it is more like a parallelogram than a rectangle. There are no parallel sides, but both long sides do go off at a similar angle from the house. When at the bottom of the garden you are as much behind the neighbours house as our own. Once in the garden, it almost doesn't matter as the eye is drawn to the bottom of the garden, but I am trying to de-emphasise the angle when viewing from the house.
At the moment, looking all the way through the house from front door, the focal point straight ahead is the back right corner. I've planted a specimen Acer on that line of sight to hide the corner, and the fence on right has been planted with climbers to grow all over the fence - neighbour has trees/hedge along that fence line too so the plan is to blur that boundary by visually hiding the fence with climbers and neighbours foliage above. Planning on adding a bunch of evergreen topiary balls/shrubs into the border along the right fence for winter structure and then plant flowering perennials in between for summer colour.
We built a garden office/shed at bottom of garden last summer and put in a new patio in front of it as that's where the sunny spot is. Also put in three lollipop-shaped trees in front of the patio to hide the top of the office/shed (again to blur the boundary). And planted a couple of trees down the left side to hide houses behind from view. Now thinking of adding in a gravel sort of section to put fire-pit - just in front of the patio - to create more entertaining space and break the garden into 'rooms' since it's so long.
My biggest dilemma though is where to put the path. Trying to keep lawn area as wide/big as possible for kids to play on, but not sure whether path should go down the left or right. The right side is more visible and the angle of the fence is more obvious and pronounced. I prefer it on the left, but it makes the lawn seem skinnier/smaller which I don't like - and worried that the new trees are going to grow over it too much as they grow.
Thinking path will be stepping stone type thing, rather than solid path - but am also tempted by a skinny-ish solid brick path - will be used on wet days for husband to get to garden office - just accept that in the summer nobody is really going to use the path anyway and just use the lawn??
Thoughts, feedback, ideas? Well done if you've read all the way though my ramblings! Now for the photos which will hopefully help illustrate the issues...
This is initial garden sketch - back of house is the blue section at bottom, with plans to extend on both sides...
Path on left... leaves lawn too skinny?
Couple ideas with path on right...one doesn't have a path the whole way! the other accentuates angle of fence line too much?
Comments (8)
User
3 years agoHi, I like your ideas but I think the path is too straight and accentuates the angles. Consider a gently curved path across the lawn.
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3 years agoRelated Discussions
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Carolina
3 years agoThe thing with a curved path is, everyone will walk in a straight line, unless the path curves around things that you can't walk through ;-)
I'm not quite sure why the angle of the garden bothers you so much. It is what it is and it makes the garden more interesting. I like all your designs, but the one with the path on the left side appeals to me the most. If the path isn't 'solid', it'll be part of the lawn, so I wouldn't be too worried that it reduces the size of that.
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Sonia
3 years agoI like your first drawing with the path on the left. It sits well within the garden and the planting will soften everything. I have no lawn due to mess created by my dogs, so I’ve paved all of mine. It’s just a simple couple of rectangles but the pots and planting help to disguise the borders shape. After 30 years it’s still a work in progress! Somehow a garden is never finished.
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3 years ago
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Carolina