How to work with patterns work

Apart from enhancing aesthetics, patterns in the landscape can meet functional needs as well. They can be used for directing movements or defining special-use areas within the garden. But the power of patterns is fully appreciated when the garden is to be viewed from above. Such gardens offer a unique opportunity to transform the two-dimensional ground plane into a work of art.

Apart from enhancing aesthetics, patterns in the landscape can meet functional needs like directing movements or defining special-use areas within the garden.

Throughout history, pattern gardens have been popular. Roman gardeners created pattern using boxwood shrubs and gravel. This approach continued for centuries. Traditionally, patterns have tended to be formal. They were often focused around a centrepiece such as a fountain or a statue.

Today, more flexible, informal patterns are being developed. Modern approaches are often sophisticated and interesting, utilising a wider range of materials as well as plants. Here are some more insights into pattern gardens:

Viewing distance

The height from which patterns created in the landscape may be viewed is important in their design.

The higher above the distance, the bigger the canvas you have to play with. Unfortunately, in most gardens, the height from which a pattern may be observed is not great; the distance of view is typically two to three metres from a balcony or an upper floor.

This has the effect of constraining the size of the patterns you can create.

Short viewing distances also require stronger delineation of design and greater attention to detail.

If you use subtle differences in texture and form, you will lose contrast, which is critical for patterns to be clearly appreciated. For a beginner, it is better to go for simple bold patterns and graduate to more intricate details as you become more confident.

Plants

Plant colour is an easy way to delineate a pattern. You can use colourful annuals within designated edging or frames. But remember that flower colour is very seasonal — glorious at their peak, dull in their off-season.

Evergreens offer a more permanent impact. Go for ones with contracting foliage colours as well as leaf shapes to create variation.

You can also build upon layers of foliage, drawing from changes in plant heights. This approach combined with the use of free-form plants that don’t need to be clipped to shape allows for a bolder effect of sweeping bands and curves to be formed.

Hardscapes

In some respects, the use of hard surfaces to create pattern is easier than that of planting because the materials and colours are permanent and more predictable. Traditionally, black and white checkerboard pavers may have sufficed. Today, however, more complex or less obvious patterns can be created using the wide range of materials available. From gravels to slabs of stone, sea shells to all sorts of mulches, the range of patterning materials is endless.

But the best patterns are not necessarily the most complex. Even very basic patterns can have a great impact if they are well executed.

If you have no idea where to start, get inspiration from garden magazines, books or fabric and trace or redraw these onto your garden plan.

Nature itself can provide sources of pattern: aerial views of land contours, curves of rivers or mountain ranges, and swathes of natural vegetation can all inspire the patterns you create in your garden.