Gone are the days, it seems, of perfectly edged, high-maintenance borders and central lawns; at the moment, it feels like we’re all embracing plant communities, rethinking how we treat the soil as the foundation for a thriving garden and considering alternative planting mediums. We are shifting from the notion of the garden as a perfect and manicured space to a more flexible, ecological approach, and the design of contemporary planting beds reflects this change.
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In our studio, we like to design gardens by imagining the space as fully planted, and then carving out paths and pause points, rather than starting with a list of components and treating planting as decoration around them. While it might sound semantic, this intentional approach makes the planting the raison d’être of the garden, and it feels cohesive, enveloping and purposeful.
My highlighted project here features curving beds that might seem all the rage today, but were pioneered by the late, great British horticulturist and plantsman Alan Bloom 75 years ago. His trialling of island beds has, arguably, influenced every garden style and planting designer since, and has paved the way for thinking about plants as intermingling in self-supporting ecosystems.
His rationale started from the basis of plant health and robustness. At his home, Bressingham in Norfolk, Bloom observed that if planted in open conditions rather than next to the immediate shelter of hedges or fences, plants grew stronger and stockier, with airiness also promoting plant health. This insight had a profound influence and prompted him in the 1950s to develop the famous Dell Garden, with 50 curvilinear island beds of 5,000 species and cultivars that could be appreciated from all sides.
In 1968, he designed the island beds at the famous Waterperry garden in Oxfordshire, which can also ill be enjoyed today. ‘I am utterly convinced that the island beds are by far the best means of growing the widest range of good subjects,’ he wrote in his 1977 book, Perennials in Island Beds.
While we don’t all have room for 50 large island beds, Bloom’s principles can be applied in any setting, regardless of size. The fluid shapes break up the monotony of lawns or hardscapes, making the garden feel more relaxed. Curved paths invite exploration – what lies around the corner? A key element of good garden design is that everything is not immediately visible, sparking curiosity and intrigue.
Using Voronoi principles to design planting beds is surprisingly simple and adaptable to gardens of all shapes and sizes
What’s more, this approach doesn’t require a rigid design plan; the garden can evolve naturally, bed-by- bed, over time, making it an excellent option if you’re working within time or budget constraints.
In larger, rural gardens with expansive views, the organic, irregular forms create a flowing, intuitive design that mediates well with the surrounding landscape. Shapes can also follow the land’s contours, reflecting the site’s slope, aspect and microclimates.
Not just for rolling grounds and large lawns, the approach is just as elective in more compact gardens with careful consideration of proportion, restraint and impact. Consider simpler arrangements – perhaps fewer beds of a greater size – that focus on a single, strong focal point rather than the complex arrangements of multiple beds.
We are even using this approach on a roof terrace we are working on in Oxford, avoiding the easy and obvious decision of a planter around the edges and instead introducing sinuous freestanding organic raised metal planters of resilient perennials and a high proportion of grasses (at the top end of our usual 30-40 per cent scale) into a mix of sand, crushed reclaimed lightweight clay aggregates and biochar. The gauziness of the grasses allows for movement and flow, making the Oxford skyline present in the garden without imposing on it.
The fluid shapes break up the monotony of lawns or hardscapes, making the garden feel more relaxed
Scale is critical. Beds should also be proportionate to one another for legibility and coherence; without a clear sense of relative size, they can feel fragmented and disassociated. And scale applies to planting also. The size of a bed and the height of plants must relate to one another and to the overall space. A small bed filled with only tall plants will feel top-heavy, while one with only low plants can feel flat and one-dimensional.
Using a measured palette of carefully considered associations that are placed to give repeated rhythm will deliver a far more visually cohesive planting 8 than a random pick-and-mix of one or two of many different species and cultivars. Remember, beds like these are designed to be viewed from all sides, meaning they must be carefully planned to ensure that they hold interest from any angle – including from vantage points above.
We have made a garden for the charity One Small Thing, recently opened by HRH The Princess of Wales, which works with justice-involved women and their children. The courtyard garden is centred around birch trees – celebrated across cultures as a symbol of hope, renewal and the promise of new beginnings, which seemed to us the perfect allegory. The garden is designed to be enjoyed from both ground level and from the apartments above. Organic, amoebic-shaped beds have been designed based on the abstracted forms of the cellular structure of birch leaves.
A variety of places are tucked in around this courtyard for residents to gather for connection,
or to take a solo seat in a quieter space for a private moment, hugged by the planting. We think a lot
in our work about how planting can create these emotionally restorative spaces, and at the heart of that is understanding the prospect-refuge theory.
By tapping into primal instincts – balancing open views that evoke safety and awareness with sheltered spaces that provide comfort and protection – places feel naturally inviting and secure, and planting plays a key role in that. Even a simple bench in a garden should feel embraced; shrubs, evergreens or chunky swathes of perennials and grasses, for example, can help provide this, while enjoying the outlook in front.
Using structural plants to frame key focal points, such as a distant garden feature or landscape, allows the viewer to feel both sheltered and connected to a broader perspective. And seeing the path that winds around each bed allows for different vantage points, with the experience of moving around the bed offering alternating moments of enclosure and openness.
Finally, in celebration of the belly – for those who like me over-indulged at Christmas – when we bring in planting mediums, whether topsoil, green waste or mineral mulches, we like to ensure there are slight contours on all of our beds, rather than them being dead flat. I’m not talking about land-forming or significant groundworks here; anything from 100mm to 300mm will make the difference, especially in a setting where the plot is flat.
The size of the bed itself is very important to determine how that lift looks in proportion. Larger beds can handle the higher end of that increase in level more than smaller; a 1:10 gradient is a good guide. A gently convex ‘back of a spoon’ profile to the bed means that you help your planting with a bit of extra oomph, enhance the visual impact and help with drainage.
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Situated in a conservation area of a small, rural town, this new house is being designed to bridge two walled gardens. One is an abandoned orchard of old heritage fruit trees, where specialist rejuvenation will help restore it to its former glory. The other is a derelict south-facing space, where a new garden will take shape, with planting right up to the house, creating an immersive atmosphere.
- Planting closer to the house creates a gauzy effect in summer, helping to embed and settle the house into the garden and adding to the sense of conceal and reveal.
- Gently bellied contours raise the beds to 250mm high at the highest points, providing a subtle lift that enhances drainage, and adds visual interest and a sense of immersion.
- Providing access for maintenance is just as important as paths for enjoyment. Here, the width of the paths allows for easy movement of a wheelbarrow, even around the curves of the beds.
- Beds share a consistent scale and size, creating a sense of connection and continuity.
- Beds are topped with thick, water-retaining, weed-suppressing mulch. In this project, the 250mm mineral mulch layer will be sourced in part from the crumbling wall being removed to make way for the house, crushed onsite with an affordable rented crusher. This will be combined with locally sourced quarry aggregate to ensure an adequate quantity. A mix of sizes will be used, ranging from fine, dust-like particles to 10mm, with occasional larger stones accenting specific areas for a more natural feel. Using a uniform-sized aggregate feels artificial and contrived, lacking the variations seen in nature, and creates a sense of being too controlled and out of place.
- Slim ‘goat tracks’ inspired by head gardener Charlie Harpur’s approach at Knepp Walled Garden, provide discreet routes for careful movement through deeper parts of beds, to allow for gardening without damaging plants or compacting the soil. They remain nearly invisible for most of the year, only becoming slightly more conspicuous during the spring cutback (shown here for information).
- For edging island beds in lawns, using material such as metal edging or a brick perimeter can define planted and grassed spaces. In this gravel garden, a hidden, ‘sacrificial’ timber edge has been sunk below the surface level, installed while path sub-bases were being compacted, providing solidity and consistency to the construction by having a fixed edge. The timber edge is then covered with the path gravel material and planting mulches. This means the planting can still creep around and wander, softening the edges and breaking them up over time.
An example of modern garden beds
Worsley Welcome Garden, RHS Bridgewater
At RHS Garden Bridgewater in Salford, Tom Stuart-Smith has designed the arrival section of the gardens using a striking mosaic- like layout for the planting beds. This pattern of interlocking, gently irregular polygons creates a flowing and intuitive experience for visitors.
The design is based on the mathematical principles of Voronoi patterns, often found in nature’s geometries. When I spoke with Tom about this garden, he likened it to the patterns on a giraffe’s skin. Similar tessellations appear throughout nature, which is rich with inspiration, from the cellular structures
of plants and animals to seedpods and the cracked polygons of dried mud. Using Voronoi principles to design planting beds is surprisingly simple and adaptable to gardens of all shapes and sizes.
At RHS Bridgewater, Tom’s beds provide a transition between the structured formality and scale of the entrance buildings and the softer, organic landscape beyond. For smaller spaces or irregularly shaped plots, this approach is equally effective – and take it from this just-scraped- a-C-grade-GCSE mathematician – you don’t need to be a numbers whizz to try it.
Imagine scattering dots across your garden, which could be at arbitrary or specific distances. Each dot becomes the centre of a planting bed. To create larger beds, place them farther apart. For smaller or more intricate shapes, position them closer together.
Firstly, connect the dots by drawing straight lines connecting each to its nearest neighbour, forming a network of connected triangles.
Mark the midpoint of each of the triangle’s edges, and from each midpoint, draw a new perpendicular line until they intersect. These intersecting lines create natural-looking polygons
wrapped around each original dot. These polygons, fitting together like puzzle pieces, form your planting beds.
To plan pathways, you can ‘offset’ the lines by a consistent distance to create an accessible and easy-to-navigate route. At RHS Bridgewater, these paths are hard- surfaced and wide to handle the volume of visitors, but more intimate or even turfed paths would work just as well in a private garden.
Tom has then also balanced the bed sizes to give a congruence of relationship between them. The gentle curving of the corners gives a soft and organic feel while also reducing the likelihood of visitors cutting across sharp corners, which can create unwanted desire lines through or on the edges of the planting.
Within the beds, 2m-high clipped beech topiary gives year-round structure and is a foil
to the drifts of Molinia, Rodgersia, Lythrum, Euphorbia palustris and Iris sibirica.
To add subtle lift, the beds are slightly mounded by about 150mm so they are higher in the centre, sloping gently toward the edges to meet the pathways.