Katy was the person I told first when I decided to launch Root&Bloom Designs – a top secret project no one knew about – and a ‘Passion Project; for sure…

Small Garden, Big Change.

Bespoke Garden Design & Raised Bed Planting in Winnersh

Sometimes the best garden makeovers happen in the smallest spaces.

Katy and Jess had a relatively small, enclosed garden in Winnersh which simply wasn’t working for them.

It was damp. It felt dark. The existing space was tired and awkward and, rather than somewhere you’d choose to sit with a coffee, it was really just somewhere outside the house.

So our starting point wasn’t:

“What plants should we buy?”

It was:

“How can we completely change how this garden feels?”

And that’s where a combination of good landscaping, bespoke garden design and carefully considered planting can make an enormous difference.

Phase One: Fix the garden before planting it

There’s little point spending hundreds of pounds on beautiful plants if the space they’re going into doesn’t work.

So Phase One was landscaping.

The old garden needed opening up and simplifying, with particular consideration given to the damp conditions and how we could make every metre of this small garden useful.

The new pale paving immediately made the space feel cleaner, brighter and larger.

Then came one of the stars of the project:

The large timber raised bed.

For a small garden, a raised flower bed can be a fantastic solution.  It creates structure and height, provides a substantial volume of good planting soil and allows us to create a much deeper, richer planting scheme than simply lining a few plants along the fence.

It also brings the plants physically closer to you, and a natural place to sit.

And that little design idea completely changed the feeling of the garden.

Bespoke planting rather than “some nice plants”

Once the landscaping and raised bed construction were complete, we could finally get to the really enjoyable bit.

The planting.

And this wasn’t simply a case of wandering around a garden centre picking things that looked pretty, and cat friendly… good planting design starts with the garden.

How much sun does it get?

Where is the shade?

How damp is the soil?

What will survive there?

What will thrive there?

How big will everything eventually become?

What flowers in spring, summer and autumn?

And what will still look interesting when nothing is flowering?

Our aim was to create a bespoke planting scheme for Katy and Jess, designed around their particular garden rather than using a generic list of fashionable plants.

Layered raised bed planting

Look closely at the finished raised bed and you’ll see there’s quite a lot going on.

That’s deliberate.

At the back, taller planting creates height and starts softening the large expanse of fencing.

Roses provide bigger statement flowers and vertical interest.

Through the middle we’ve used flowering plants in purples, pinks, yellows and whites to create movement and repeated colour.

Towards the front, lower-growing plants and contrasting foliage soften that chunky timber edge.

We’ve also mixed deep burgundy foliage with fresh greens, silvers and brighter lime tones.

The result is a layered planting design rather than a row of individual plants.

Your eye moves around it.

And as the plants mature, they’ll begin to grow into one another and the whole raised bed should become increasingly lush.

Why raised beds work so well in small gardens

Used properly, a bespoke raised flower bed can become one of the main features of a garden:

• Better soil and growing conditions
• Improved drainage
• Greater planting depth
• Height and structure
• Defined planting areas
• Easier access to plants
• More impact in a small space
• Somewhere informal to perch with a cup of tea

And in Katy and Jess’s garden, the raised bed also helps separate the lushness of the planting from the clean lines of the new paving.

Hard landscaping gives us the bones.

Planting gives us the soul.

Small garden planting requires restraint

There’s one slight problem when you’re allowed to choose plants professionally.

You want ALL OF THEM.

Unfortunately, putting every plant I like into one raised bed would create something resembling a botanical car boot sale.

So bespoke planting design is as much about what you leave out as what you put in.

In a small garden, every plant needs to earn its place.

We consider mature size, flowering period, foliage, height, spread, growing conditions and how one plant will interact with the next.

Repetition is important too.

Repeating colours, textures and varieties gives a professional planting scheme a sense of rhythm and stops it looking like a random collection of garden-centre purchases.

And look what happened to the fence…

It’s still there.

Still big.

Still wooden.

But now?

You barely notice it.

Your eye goes to the roses.

Then the purple.

Then the yellow.

Then the contrasting foliage.

Then something else catches your attention.

As the planting grows and matures, the fence will increasingly become nothing more than the backdrop.

That’s one of the things good garden design and planting can do particularly well.

It changes where you look.

Possibly my favourite photograph from the whole project is Katy sitting on the edge of the raised bed with a mug in her hand….

Because that’s really what all this is about.

Not paving.

Not timber.

Not even plants.

It’s about creating somewhere you want to be.

Before, this was a small, damp and rather uninspiring outdoor space.

Now there’s somewhere to sit.

Somewhere to look.

Colour.

Flowers.

Texture.

Life.

The garden hasn’t gained another square metre.

But it feels bigger, brighter, warmer and considerably more inviting.

That’s what a successful small garden makeover should achieve.

And the planting isn’t finished…

This is something I explain when giving planting advice to customers around Winnersh and Wokingham.

Don’t judge a newly planted garden solely on day one.

Plants need time.

The gaps you see today are tomorrow’s growth.

The roses will mature.

Perennials will spread.

Foliage will overlap.

The timber will weather.

The whole planting scheme will gradually knit together.

We’re designing for next year and the year after, not simply for the photograph taken when we’ve finished planting.

That’s why good planting design needs a little imagination.

And patience.

Lots of patience.