We all have ‘difficult garden areas‘ or spaces we want to revamp without re-designing the whole garden.
It may be a corner where nothing wants to grow. Or a space which just seems to attract clutter.
Perhaps a tree has died, a shed has collapsed or you no longer need a trampoline? Maybe you want to start – or even stop – growing veg?
This is a two-part post and the first part, 10 beautiful garden ideas, deals with the area closest to the house, which for many people is the centre of the garden. It’s what you see when you step out of the door or look out of the window. This post is about those difficult areas – shady corners, those practical parts that attract clutter or a sloping bank.
And they’re simple ideas, aimed at re-using what you’ve already got and not needing any major landscaping.
I’ve re-vamped several corners of my garden over the past few years, so I’m pulling together those ideas, plus ideas I’ve seen in other gardens to inspire you.
Seating changes your view of the garden
When we moved into this house, our predecessors told us that ‘nothing much works in the north-east facing corner of the garden.’ They started off with a tree, which died.
Then they put a pergola there. But we didn’t use it very often. It became overgrown and shady. Eventually it rotted away, and we weren’t sorry to see it go.
There are 10 options for that corner in 10 shady garden corner ideas to love (and 2 to avoid!)
These options included a shed, a compost heap, a tree and a border, but we eventually decided that seating was simplest. Depending on whether you have to buy the furniture or not, it can also be one of the cheapest because it doesn’t necessarily need new hard landscaping.
We had pavers from the previous pergola, but you could also put seating on grass.
Putting seating in a different place means you can look at your garden from a different viewpoint. I really enjoy that aspect of it.
We bought vintage seating from a friend, and had made to measure cushions made up for it.
The advantage of a shady corner is that you don’t need a parasol or awning for the hottest part of the day.
It can be difficult to find the right garden furniture, so if you’re buying new, check out How to Choose Garden Furniture.
Seating also creates a ‘destination’
Seating can also make a practical area, such as a veg patch, feel like somewhere you can spend time.
The space in front of our sheds attracted a lot of clutter. Pots and discarded items kept piling up, waiting for a ‘clear out’. So I had the clear out.
Then I added a table and two chairs to create a seating area, a place to enjoy the veg garden and a focal point.
Move things round to give everything a new look
You can re-vitalise a part of your garden by moving things around rather than always buying new.
The topiary spiral in a pot had been in the centre of the garden. So we moved it to the ‘difficult garden area’ because topiary does well in the shade.
It gives the corner some structure, and the foliage grows more slowly than it did in full sun, so it keeps its shape better.
We also moved a sundial to a different part of the garden (see further on in this post). And you don’t always have to buy new furniture, you can move what you’ve got to somewhere different.
Leave a difficult garden area to go wild
Last year I never got round to planting up the veg beds. I didn’t weed them either. I did absolutely nothing.
The result was pretty – raised beds full of poppies, feverfew and some self-seeded cerinthe.
Re-wilding is a hot topic at the moment. However, it’s widely agreed that if you just leave your garden to its own devices, then the most aggressive weeds will take over. Brambles and ground elder will out-compete native wildflowers.
Even the Queen of re-wilding, Isabella Tree, says in The Book Of Wilding that just ‘letting your garden go’ will mean that a few species will overwhelm the rest and the result will damage biodiversity and wildlife, not help it. (note that links to Amazon are affiliate, see disclosure).
But in a limited and defined space – four raised beds – just leaving everything alone for a summer has worked well. It helps that there’s a clear barrier between the ‘wild’ areas and the rest of the garden, created by the wooden sides of the beds. So I never felt it would get out of control. It was also interesting to see what grew where.
And at the end of the summer I pulled up all the weeds.
Or fill a gap with ‘green manures’
However, leaving soil bare attracts weeds. You may not want to see what is going to turn up if you do nothing at all.
‘Green manures’ are plants that improve the soil structure and add to the fertility of the soil.
You buy a packet of green manure seeds (I was gifted a mixed green manure mix and a packet of Phacelia seeds by Thompson & Morgan).
I simply scattered the seeds in late September, after I’d weeded the ‘re-wilded’ veg beds, then raked it over. It took about ten minutes.
The green manures sprouted and are growing slowly over winter, when the weather is warm enough.
When I need to re-plant the borders, I can either cut down the green manures and leave them to rot or I can dig them in.
Ideas for slopes – the most difficult garden areas
A slope is possibly the most difficult part of the garden to plant. If it’s a sunny slope, consider a rockery, however small.
There are tips on how to create a rockery – plus a small garden rockery – in The Rock Garden is Back – and It’s Drought Resistant.
If, however, your sloping area is shaded, then consider creating a stumpery. A stumpery is an arrangement of dead tree stumps and logs. It’s brilliant for wildlife because decaying wood is a natural part of the environmental life cycle. And you get to enjoy the natural sculptural shapes of tree stumps, with bulbs and alpine plants wedged into the crevices. Find advice on how to create a stumpery here.
Turn a practical area into somewhere special with a focal point
Traditionally people have hidden the veg patch away. My veg growing area has always attracted clutter because I didn’t think about how the area looked, just about what I was going to grow in it.
But with smaller gardens every bit of space is precious. So we decided to make the veg patch a beautiful place to be. That’s very on trend at the moment, but it’s also a way of enjoying your garden more.
At this year’s Chelsea flower show, the Savill’s Garden Kitchen by Mark Gregory positioned the kitchen and veg growing at the heart of the garden.
To make a veg patch feel like a proper garden, it needs a focal point. So we took the sundial that we had had in the centre of the garden and put it at the centre of the raised beds. We had to cut an angle off a corner of each raised bed so that we could walk past the sundial. I’m pleased with the result.
I may go on growing veg in these beds, or I could turn this into a cottage garden, a cutting garden or try the re-wilding again.
Add a ‘grand’ element to a working area
Along a similar theme, adding ornaments, sculpture or surprisingly grand elements can make a working part of the garden feel and look like something special.
A pot of paint can work wonders
If you want to make a cluttered area look better, then get out out the paint. Painting a shed and a fence the same colour, for example, can ‘lose the shed’.
If you want more ideas for the garden – for the main part, nearest the house, then don’t miss this video here.
Pin to remember ideas for difficult garden areas
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