Garden Guru: Fine-tuning

Paths are a necessity so their shape is important. Photo / Supplied

Your garden, just like a car, will benefit from a regular tune-up. The design of even the most groomed plot can get a bit flabby as pristine lawn edges grow wobbly over the years, views close in or shrubs turn into maneaters, engulfing all in their path. Here are my top 10 tune-up tips:

1. Just as a stadium needs its U2, so our gardens need an obvious drawcard or "main event", possibly with a good support band tucked away on one side. Sometimes the house will be special enough and the garden can simply play second fiddle but more often you will need some sort of wow factor, be it a beautiful seat, a bit of sculpture, topiary, a star tree or even a tinkling of ever-magical water.

2. Every big event needs those boring essentials that are expected. In the garden it is dustbins, sheds and compost heaps - perhaps a dog kennel and a kids' trampoline. Include them by all means but make sure they are not on show.

3. Paths grab the eye so are an inescapably important part of the design. They need to lead easily and logically from A to B, look attractive, and be an appealing shape and proportion.

4. Whenever I had a boring teacher I always found something interesting out of the classroom window. It's the same in the garden - a stolen view which you might open up through the thicket you planted 10 years ago to create privacy might lead to a neighbouring tree, a sliver of park or a field. These are all designer bling you can incorporate to add a bit of personality.

5. Flower borders need plenty of body, even in the depths of winter. Often it is evergreens but sometimes it might be the burned-out carcasses of grasses that are still looking fabulous or perhaps the twiggy forms of denser deciduous shrubs. Body simply means a good proportion of interesting shapes juxtaposed. If you are not good at visualising shapes alone then take a black-and-white photo of your borders in morning or evening light - even drained of colour they should look full of strong characters.

6. Root out bullies, such as groups of cannas becoming crowds, climbers turning into haystacks and palms or pittos you bought to hide a fence but that are now blotting out the sun.

7. The lawn is often the first thing anyone notices so give it a strong identity. Too often we approach designing the wrong way around - by planning the shape of our flower beds first and what is left becomes grass. Design your lawn first as a sort of sculpture. Give it a confident sense of shape and purpose and worry about the spaces left over later - they will soon fill up with foliage and flowers to hide all those awkward corners and angles.

8. Ask yourself what you want your general theme to be. Most of the materials you use should add to this overall effect, not fight it. An informal and rustic feel, for example, is typified often by rusty iron sculptures or chunky rough-sawn benches and soft leafy edges. But in a formal layout the plants, shapes and materials should march with military precision.

9. In design there is always safety in numbers. One pot shows you've been shopping, three pots together suggests you are out to make a statement. Line eight along a path, however, and it will be interpreted as inspired showmanship. Whichever, it's the eight that will be remembered.

10. Add a bit of you. If your garden is starting to look like a magazine cover, you may need to do something tasteless and brash. Buy that bit of quirky sculpture you really like instead of the stainless steel obelisk everyone else was snapping up at Ellerslie.