How to grow an English country garden

These are the five essential elements you need to create the perfect English country garden.

Garden design is about making sense of your outside space - by creating 'rooms', forming pathways and enclosing your spaces. If you have a good-sized garden you can make several lawn-filled 'rooms', lay paths between them and enclose them with walls of hedges.

A rectangular lawn is more authentically country and less urban than a circular design. Try to get a few rectangles of different sizes into your plot (above).

Make sure there's enough room around the lawn for generous flowerbeds. The bigger the lawn, the deeper the planting needs to be. Ideally there'll be enough room for three tiers of planting from tall at the back, to low at the front. And for that you need the border to be at least two metres deep.

Between your lawns add walkways. They can be laid with gravel, paving, or brick and should be wide enough for two people to walk comfortably along side-by-side. Spanning a pathway you could add an arch covered with climbing plants.

Think about what you'll see from the lawn and walkway. Try to include a feature to provide a focal point – otherwise known as a 'view-stopper'. It could be a sculpture, a seat, fountain or simple water feature.

Hedges are an integral part of an English country garden. They form the walls of the new 'rooms' you're making. Plant them behind the borders and alongside the walkways to separate each lawn and path. And where a hedge crosses a walkway, create an arch that you could also use to form a frame for the 'view-stopper'.

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Original article and pictures take http://www.housebeautiful.co.uk/garden/designs/how-to/a486/how-to-grow-an-english-country-garden/ site