Flower garden ideas and designs
Flowers are such an effective way of making any garden - whether a compact city garden or sprawling cottage garden - instantly seem alive with colour. Filling your borders with blooming flowers of every variety is easier than you might think, all you need is a little guidance to point you in the right direction when it comes to planting combinations and design ideas; plus there are plenty of garden design apps out there if you need a hand. One of the many perks of having wild flowers in your garden - other than the help it gives to the bee population - is that you can always have freshly cut flowers in the house. So grab the gardening gloves and look to these wonderful flower-filled gardens from the House & Garden archive for inspiration.
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Flower garden ideas and designs
Sabina Ruber1/15Paeonia lactiflora ‘Bowl of Beauty’ and Rosa ‘Rita’ provide vibrant splashes of pink in the exuberantly planted sundial garden of Kiftsgate, a 100 year old garden famous for its roses, cultivated by three generations of women.
Andrew Montgomery2/15A group of cypress trees in the meadow forms a striking contrast with the richly textured planting around the terrace at Bolsena in Italy. Flowing drifts of plants, including white Hydrangea ‘Annabelle’, mauve Verbena bonariensis, emerald green Amsonia tabernaemontana and purple Salvia x sylvestris ‘Mainacht’ mingle with dark crimson Rosa Munstead Wood.
Simon Griffiths3/15In the gardens of Bloomfield, an extravagantly romantic garden set against the dramatic landscape of New South Wales, serpentine herbaceous borders are planted with English lavender and clipped box balls, interspersed with Salvia nemorosa, Gaura lindheimeri, Verbena bonariensis and achillea.
Simon Griffiths4/15Pink and white roses, mauve sweet peas, hollyhocks and Mexican fleabane fill the beds in the cutting garden of Bloomfield.
Ngoc Minh Ngo5/15Pergolas swathed in Wisteria floribunda ‘Alba’ create a backdrop for Iris pallida var. dalmatica in the cloister garden in the exquisite grounds of Petworth House.
Simon Upton6/15If you invest in an iron obelisk for your border it will add year-round structure and can be used as support for everything from sweet peas to clematis or roses.
Andrew Montgomery7/15The gatehouse of fourteenth-century castle Trematon is now engulfed by banks of wildflowers, with a view of the Tamar Estuary at Devonport down below. The sea of wildflowers is punctuated by palm trees - perfect for the warmer Cornish climate.
Andrew Montgomery8/15Castellated Facade - The Garden of Designer Arabella Lennox-Boyd | Designers' Gardens
The castellated façade of the house is softened by deep borders divided by yew buttresses at Arabella Lennox-Boyd's garden. Repeat plantings of salvia at the front of the border are echoed by purple thalictrum towards the back, and buttony sanguisorba.
9/15Flower Box Terrace
Seasonal planting in modern boxes surrounds the outdoor dining set at this city patio.
Jason Ingram10/15When former IT worker-turned-gardening enuthusiast Sue Beesley took on Bluebell Cottage Gardens and Nursery in Cheshire in 2007 she immediately set about transforming the two-acre plot. Simple amendments included clipping the rod-straight yew hedges that ran through the garden into gentle curves and creating rounded planting areas where there were previously straignt-edged borders. "I don't want to see straight through the garden," she says. "I want the sense of a journey, I want people to wonder what's around the next corner."
Rachael Smith11/15A collection of pots in the West London garden of interior designer Louise Jones - an easy way to create and maintain a flower garden if you have a city garden.
Rachael Smith12/15Rose Arbour
Louisa Jones developed a passion for David Austin roses when she was planning the garden of her Victorian cottage in south west London. She planted an arbour of roses to separate her patio and lawn. Planting climbing plants next to an arbour is the perfect was to soften the structural components of a garden.
Andrew Montgomery13/15A fruit tree sits amid the flower beds in garden designer Bunny Guiness' Cambridgeshire garden, adding height and dimension to the border.
Andrew Montgomery14/15Add Colour to Established Herbaceous Borders | Country Garden Design Ideas
Bright flowers grow in rows with a view of the house in the background at the Wardington Manor flower garden managed by The Land Gardeners. The Victorian walled garden has traditional herbaceous borders planted with delphiniums.
Simon Brown15/15Butter Wakefield's garden at her London home is filled with an abundance of geums, foxgloves, nepeta, roses and geraniums; a wildflower meadow sweeps across the centre of the lawn, which is handsomely framed by clipped box pyramids.
