It is often thought that Garden Designers create small to medium spaces leaving the larger projects to Landscape Architects. The fact is that generally a properly trained Garden Designer is as capable of creating magic in acres rather than square yards as a Landscape Architect is of organising a courtyard. Good design is good design whatever the letters after the name. Having said that, & this is a sweeping generalisation, Garden Designers tend to be more horticulturally aware, whilst Landscape Architects deal more with the dynamics of a design or how people use a space.

The problems inherent with designs in a large garden or estate are often down to the dynamics that are the usual provision of Landscape Architects. Scale, vistas, circulation, & management are all aspects of the large landscape that increase in importance with the increase in size. As long as the designer is aware of the shift in design emphasis in the larger landscape then problems should be avoided. Most of the great gardens that are lauded worldwide are of an appreciable size & all the respected gardeners through the centuries from the classical Le Notre & Repton to contemporary Noguchi & Schwartz have dealt with big landscapes.

Scale is one of the most important factors in the design of a big garden. The features in a garden have to be in proportion to their surroundings & this is usually reliant on the position. In a confined space a sculpture will dominate, so its size should be smaller than if it features in an open landscape where its relationship to the garden is less dominant. Here it could be larger because it will be a focal point or an enhancement to the views around or across it. Planting also needs to be scaled properly as it is usually viewed from distance & so should be considered as sweeps of colour or texture, with trees & larger shrubs being more structural, defining spaces & guiding views. The whole raison d’être of the large garden is to reflect the scale of the surrounding landscape. At Le Notre’s masterpiece in Versailles, massive scale is everything. The design sweeps through the countryside reflecting the Sun Kings dominance over everything in France. I’m not advocating a need for megalomania in owning a large landscape, but if the garden stretches half a mile from the house then the whole area needs consideration. A wise man once said to me, “Start designing from the boundary & end up at the house”, not a bad piece of advice with a big garden.

The standard for country house garden design in Britain was really set by the Arts & Crafts movement. Most notably the combination of the design of Edwin Lutyens & the horticultural skills of Gertrude Jekyll showed houses like Hestercombe in Somerset in their best light. The Bible of Garden Design at the turn of the last century was ‘The Art & Craft of Garden Making’ by Thomas Mawson, who was later to become the first president of the Landscape Institute, & is credited with coining the phrase ‘Landscape Architect’. Mawson set the ‘rules’ that still tend to apply in country gardens, in that the formality governed by terraces & patios define the living space around the house with the out-lying areas blending in with the surrounding landscape. This gives the appearance of a garden being part of the land rather than being imposed upon it. Given that most houses built today are still in a style over 100 years old then this style of gardening could still be regarded as relevant.

Views through & out of the garden assume a greater importance when the scale of a garden increases. They define the relationship with the surrounding landscape & create the dynamics of space within the garden. The key factors to consider when constructing a vista are framing (where the view is defined & unwanted factors are eliminated) & perspective (a long thin vista focuses a view to a defined point whereas a widening frame increases the space within the garden). Very often the skeleton of a garden is constructed around the views available & the planting & landscaping clothes this framework.

The neglected constituents of a large landscape as opposed to a small garden are the twin bedfellows of circulation & management. The bottom line is that large landscapes need a good deal of care, even if they are ‘naturalised’, & the circulation round or accessibility to all areas of the garden is vital to keeping it all under control. What can ruin a good garden is the provision for tractor access at all points so the path network resembles Spaghetti Junction. The best way to tackle this is to allow the main machinery access ways to be hidden from general view, whilst defining the garden areas with pedestrian pathways that link with the larger paths at places that allow machinery to get as close as possible without causing problems.

The trick is to design a large landscape with an overview, or masterplan, before zooming in on separate areas & designing them individually. Design the whole & then increase the detail in the feature areas, then the structure that is vital to the success of a design will not be compromised. Summing it up…no part of a large garden is more important than the whole & whole gardens don’t happen by accident.