• You’ve purchased plants, lots of them, but still you don’t have the garden you’ve always wanted
• You’ve purchased features like statues, benches, ornamental pots etc. but they didn’t make a lot of difference once the new purchase novelty wore off
• You’ve read articles and books on garden design (or tried to at least) but the way they were written just left you more confused and bewildered than ever
•  You’re now stuck and doing nothing because you don’t know where to start or what to do
• Maybe you’ve even called in a professional landscape team but despite the cost, the results just aren’t what you imagined and you cannot even express precisely what’s wrong, you just know it should be better than this

Is it:

1. The plants?
2. The features like your pond, patio, favourite bench or statue?
3. Perhaps it’s the feeling of relaxation and peace of being in a natural environment?

It could be all of the above. Trouble is none of those things are what creates a truly great garden.

Yes, you did read that correctly.

Plants, features or anything else you might imagine will not make your garden stunning. It does not matter how much money you spend either.

Again, you read that correctly. Money isn’t the answer either.

Apparently, according to an HSBC report, the average person (whatever that is) spends £3,904 on their garden. In reality though, I know people spend a great deal more than that. But…

Precisely. Very few people have a really stunning garden. Even gardens that have been professionally landscaped don’t always look that great.

In a word, design.

Unless you plan your garden properly, it will never look good. No matter how many plants and features you buy or how much time or money you throw at it.

Why?

The reason is because what really makes a beautiful garden is how you organise the space within it – creating the right framework for all the pretty things like plants to be displayed in. Plants and features are the finishing touch, they are not the starting point.

If you get the shape right first (I don’t mean the overall shape of your garden but the shapes you create within each area) then add the plants and features in the right places, that’s when the magic happens.

Think of plants and features like actors on a stage. In order to be fabulous, the actors and actresses need a storyline. Can you imagine a stage full of actors just turning up and being expected to perform to please an audience? One might be able to improvise a new story out of thin air but a whole group with no script, no direction, no idea what to do? I think even the most accomplished actors would struggle with that.

A garden is like any good production, there’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make it work. Good actors are like good plant choices. You notice them rather than the production team that put the whole thing together and made it all work.

So you absolutely do need a design, a plan of some description (a strong storyline). What you don’t necessarily need however, is a designer.

This is something you can do yourself, if you follow the right formula. You can write your own script. And, no, it doesn’t have to be anything as complicated as you might have seen in garden design books.

I know exactly how frustrating some garden design books can be. I also know how difficult it can be to learn design from academic style courses. Learning materials that leave you wanting to bash your head against the nearest wall are not conducive to creating a stunning garden!

I should probably properly introduce myself. I’m Rachel Mathews and I’m a professional, international garden designer. In the last 20+ years I’ve designed every size, shape, style and budget of garden you can imagine. I’ve also seen hundreds of gardens that have had a lot of time, money and effort put into them and still the owners are dissatisfied with the results (which is why they’ve called me in).

I suspect it comes down to the ‘naturally talented curse’. People that can naturally do things easily, often aren’t able to clearly express how they do them to others.

I am not that person.

I struggled to learn how to design gardens. Even though I was technically qualified to be a garden designer, I’d managed to pass all the theory at college. When it came to actually doing it professionally, if I’m honest, I didn’t really know how to do it in those early days.

Like you though, I’m pretty determined once I decide I’m going to do something. So despite the fact I couldn’t visualise how a finished design would look (a big problem for most people) I was determined this was going to be my career.

Every now and then, in those early days, a design would just come together, sometimes in a matter of minutes. This actually added to my frustration because I didn’t know why I could do a design in 10 minutes one day and spend weeks trying endless different ideas the next time round.

So, I studied what I was doing differently when the designs went well. Turns out there’s a very specific order you need to do things in. A formula, if you like. A simple one at that.

It’s this design formula that I teach in the online garden design course I run here called the Great Garden Formula.

The first thing I get people, like you, who follow the formula laid out in the course, is to forget about plants, for the time being at least. Yes, that can, and does sometimes upset the plant obsessed folks but once they realise the key to designing a garden isn’t starting with plants, they get fantastic results.

It is counterintuitive to not think about plants first, but it is the best way if you want good results. You have to have the story written before you can possibly know which actors will be most suited for the role.

We touched on this earlier. Good design is all about how you shape the space. THE most important shapes to focus on are the main areas of empty space; the parts you walk on like the patio, deck and lawn etc.

Yes, seriously, just getting your lawn the correct shape for you garden type makes an enormous difference.

Re-shaping a lawn is not expensive to do. It’s important you pick the right shape though. That all comes down to the overall shape of your garden. If you have a long, narrow garden, you need to choose a shape and position it in a way that will accentuate the width not the length so you don’t inadvertently make it look narrower.

You can see why this way of doing things isn’t often written about. People love plants and features, they like stuff. It isn’t sexy to write about shaping your lawn and patio correctly when there’s all those lovely plants crying out to be noticed!

Garden centres and garden authors know this. It’s their job to supply things people want. Garden books wouldn’t sell nearly so well if they didn’t focus heavily on plants. Let’s face it, a garden isn’t a garden without plants. So, it does make a lot of sense that everyone focuses on the pretty bits. Only to a point though. If you want a truly stunning garden, it has to be designed and designed well.

It’s at this point a lot of people will call in a landscape team. Trouble is, most landscapers are not trained designers. They might well be able to build you a fantastic wall, patio and pond but unless those things are in the right place, they will never look right, no matter how well built they are.

Good design works together as one whole entity. If you add things here and there without taking into account the impact on the rest of the garden the results are never good! Trust me on that one, I’ve seen it over and over again in hundreds of gardens.

No one would ever dream of calling in a builder in to build them a house without a plan to follow. The chances of getting the flow and room sizes right isn’t something anyone would leave to chance.

Yet, it is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G  how many people do just that when it comes to landscaping! Just because there isn’t a roof, doesn’t mean your garden layout shouldn’t be as carefully planned as your home, if you want good results.

Beautiful gardens do NOT happen by accident. If you’re very lucky a corner of a garden might come together nicely by accident, but not the whole garden.

So I urge you to focus on design first and foremost. If you’ve already bought a lot of plants and features, it’s ok. You may have to shuffle things around a little bit, but all is definitely not lost. You really can improve your garden dramatically with the right shape lawn as the picture below shows.

The shape and way the materials work with one another is what has really made the big difference to the garden in the second picture; the plants are only the icing on the cake. If we’d just changed the plants and not adjusted the shape of the lawn and patio, the garden wouldn’t look much better than in the first picture.

I’ve taught the design formula that took me years to create and refine to many people around the world. I’m blown away by how much people have enjoyed doing the course and learning the right way to design their own garden. Several people have loved it so much that they’ve decided to change careers and become professional garden designers.

The Great Garden Formula incorporates simple but advanced teaching methods which means there isn’t a load of hard to understand academic or designer speak. The course is in plain English and takes you step-by-step through the design process. If you do need some extra clarification on anything I’m on hand to answer your questions in the member’s area.

Every garden is different. Some are long and narrow, others are wide, small, large, square, the list goes on. This is what can make designing your garden difficult. Long, narrow gardens for instance need to be made to look wider and with points of interest throughout in order to look really good.

Over the years I discovered that each type of garden has a set of things that needs to be done in order to achieve a successful design. Certain design shapes are effective for different types of garden.

For example, in the garden plan featured below you’ll see the shapes used have made this small garden look much bigger. The trick is to use the right shapes for your garden and requirements.

I passionately believe that the ‘average’ garden can and should be so much more than average, which is why in 2009 I went on a teacher training course so that I could effectively teach my design formula to others.

The formula I’ve created makes it easy for anyone to transform any type of garden.

I’ve developed this course to enable even a complete beginner to design their garden successfully. So, if you’re looking to transform your garden, the Great Garden Formula will guide you through the process step-by-step. You’ll be able to… 

• Immediately see why your garden doesn’t look as good as it should.
• Show you step-by-step how to turn a garden that looks boring and dull into an exciting and beautiful garden.
• Save yourself money by getting the right design for your garden without doing expensive ‘trial and error gardening’
• Create a garden that you and your family can enjoy spending time in.
• Increase the value of your property with a fantastic landscape.

• The key to creating a great garden – discover one simple thing you can do that creates 60% of the results. It’s very counterintuitive, which is why most people don’t think to do it.
• Small gardens – discover how you can make a small space look double the size with clever use of design lines and shape.
• Awkward shaped gardens – discover how you can easily disguise even the most awkward of angled boundaries and create a fantastic garden no matter what shape it is.
• Changes in level – learn how to turn a sloping garden into a great garden. There’s a right way to tackle level changes and a wrong way, most people get it totally wrong because of one thing.
• Working out what you want in your garden – there is one thing that is vital to know to create a garden you’ll love, it’s subtle and surprising but important to know, and it has nothing to do with what plants and features you like…

• How long does the course take? That’s really up to you, it’s instant access to all the course material so you can do it at a pace that suits you. If you want to do it quickly, the course could be done over a couple of weekends but I would suggest spreading it out over 3-4 weekends or longer.
• How much money will I have to spend on my garden after the course to get it looking good? Well again, this is entirely up to you and will depend a lot on what you have there now. A big part of improving your garden is down to something that isn’t expensive (we cover what this is in the course), so no problem if you are working with a budget.
• Do I need garden design software? No. You don’t need to learn any technically challenging software to be able to do this coure. You can of course use software if you prefer to draw with it. Pencil, paper and an eraser are all you need.