Hello Great :-)

I don't think i'd use the everyday fence panels, i think i'd try those woven willow 'panels', and in a long narrow, town, garden that i had, i divided it with wooden trellis panels and grew various climbers over them - i had the panels in a staggered fashion.

You can also divide the garden just by creating the flower/or shrub beds in the same staggered/zig-zag design and planting tall, dense, bushy plants there to give height (definately a number of evergreen ones so you've still got colour and form in winter).

Perennials like tall grasses and Verbena bonariensis spring immediately to mind but DO combine them with the shrubs or your dividers will disappear in winter - as just mentioned above.

Yes Louise1, it was the willow panelling I was thinking off, was thinking of climbing/ramberling roses. What do you think?

Hello Great,
Very interesting to hear about the dimensions of your garden as ours is about 50 x 10 and down a fair slope. I've not yet succeeded in dividing it up into what's always called different "rooms" - we'll get there one day - but a useful tip from my sister-in-law was that a curved path makes a narrowish garden seem wider, and that is one thing we have done that worked. I can recommend it.
Climbing/rambling roses are lovely, and just the other day somebody posted a question about them and received a good specific answer recommending some particular ones, even for facing a particular direction. You could look it up? (unless it was you that asked the question of course, in which case you've already read it!)

Is it a walled garden, and how much sunlight do you get.
I'm afraid i'm not into fancy designs, but what i'd do is have a straight path all the way along one side, about 18" wide, then divide up the remaining 8 or so feet you've got left into separate beds. If you want veg you need three beds for crop rotation. You could arrange it so that you alternate the beds between veg and flowers.
You could even tier the beds.....

Hi all, my garden is not walled Scrumpygrat. It has a 6 foot high fence to the left and a 4 foot fence to the right. The back of the garden gets the most sun.
No weeding it wasen't me that asked a question about roses however I did say to Louise1 that I may put a fence panel across the garden and climb roses up it. I don't really know what to do hense my question. I'll put some photos up in a bit just catching up on Eastenders

photos are now here

I have to disagree strongly with Scrumpy because straight lines make the eye see 'long and thin', in small and narrow gardens alike you need to avoid straight anything like the plague, you MUST detract from the long.

Your design needs to create a 'fat' and wide effect or the eye will just see a long tunnel of vision.
By having horizontal paths/beds/panels at staggered and regular intervals the look is broken up but you must have plant interest at those staggered paths, borders and panels - you must cover them up with year round greenery, i'd recommend evergreen aswell as perennial planting.

I'm sounding like an old record now so i'll shut up :-/

No Louise don't!!!! - your making sense to me!!. I have just put my photos up, so you all can see just how narrow it looks. Where would you suggest I put the panels? Should I turn the veg beds round the other way? I have 4 of them; don't know if you can see the 1 metre sq one at the back , left hand side. Was thinking of making them smaller and putting them closer together, but don't want to loose valuable veg growing space. Oh help

Aha ! Now i see the garden.
Yes, it's a long tunnel effect, isn't it.
I watch hundreds of gardening programmes and this very example was shown on one of them, they divided the space by strong, bold divisions, i think you need to be the same in your handling of this or you'll end up with a diluted effect instead of what you really want.

With the space being 60' long the divisions could be evenly spaced at two 20' intervals and then your own last panel being the end of the garden.
Or, i think what i personally would do is have three 'dividers and make your own last panel the end of the garden.

I think i'd maybe use those willow panels but have them completely hidden by planting, almost so they're not seen. I'd have clematis growing 'into' them and i'd have perennials aswell as shrubs all around the panels so there wasn't a bit of ground visible - i think i'd use a nice shape for that bed - maybe a shamrock shape (something very curvy ... adds more interest).

I would suggest that each 'divider' goes more than half the width of the garden, remember, you mustn't be able to see the next 'area/bit of garden' when you're in each one/little garden.
And each of your 'little gardens' can be just lawn, bark/gravel chippings, patio, veggies ..... whatever you like !
I would position the veggies at the end of the garden and have the more 'ornamental' areas before it.

Have a think and get lots of ideas from folks and then form your own plan :-))

Thank you so much!!!! Louise1, lots to think about there. I was thinking off moving all the veg beds down the bottom of the garden, as this is where most of the sun is. Shame is so far from the house. But it does make sense. But will I create even more shade by the panelling??. As I have a 6 foot high fence to the left of the garden. So at certain times of the year, half of the garden length ways, seems to be in shade. Can't remember what months of the year now

I would put the veg at the bottom of the garden in raised beds if possible and put the special matting between to stop the weeds. I would then put a 6 ft trellis across the garden where you want your veg to stop. You will get shade the veg side but you could put a compost bin and made properly it does not smell my neighbours has one the other side of the fence where I sit!.
Put an opening at one side of the trellis not in the middle with roses and clematis. Put a seating place in front of it with some paving slabs. Before I could afford to do it properly I just put the special matting down and put the paving slabs on top it is still like that after years but looks natural! The rest of the garden towards the house can be as you want it with with flowers, pond.

You're getting some lovely suggestions here Great. I'm sure you'll make a good job of it all too. I did have reservations about the shade created by dividers, but I suppose a garden needs shaded areas aswell as light.
I'd only add the comment that if it was me I'd want the nearest bit to the house to be the part that I visit and enjoy most (with us currently it's the veg!) There's no hard and fast rule that flowers and shrubs must come before veg...
These are good aerial shots of your garden, I should post some of ours. Your neighbours don't seem keen on gardening - get them to sell or rent some of their garden to you? (it's ok, that was my little joke).

When i was a member on another forum, Someone had a garden very much like yours Great, What he done was, made a path right down the garden in a zigzag design, untill you reached a third from the bottom end, that was his veg plot, with raised beds and very nice it was to ;) now back to the zigzag design, when you do this you have triangle areas (borders) he placed either willow fencing, trellis, or tall plants to screen each area (nothing to heavy), so as you walked down ( or zigzag'd)the path there were the triangular beds with different planting schemes, Cottage, tropical, Herbs, the skys the limit. His garden was Gorgeous, and looked wider than it really was. I hope this makes sense Great :) Try drawing a zigzag pattern on a piece of paper and you will see what i mean.. Start from the left or righthand corner..
PS, there were a couple of arches to walk through to..
pps, I hope you win the lottery wednesday great, to pay for all this :)

weeding I have thought about renting part of next doors garden, as they only grow weeds!!!

Ah Youngdaisyd I hope I get a win fall to. Thanks for your ideas. Been looking at my garden this morning; check out my latest blog which |I did this morning and you will get a snapshot of how much shade I already have. I am worried that if I put trellis in I will have all my garden in shade. Can't think of how else to divide it though. Wish I could turn my garden completely round.
Thank you everyone for your fab ideas

DaisyD -

Triangle scheme sounds interesting, takes away from all the square lines doesn't it. If it wasn't such a big undertaking (and if the house guttering and damp course and demolition of our horrible back porch didn't all come higher up the list...) I'd defo consider it for our patch too. It's something a bit different.

well, guys I watched love your garden last night and got some lovely ideas as the garden focussed was 20 metres thats about 60 feet isn't it? The lady seemed to have more width than me, I have only 10 feet. Liked the idea of the brick wall. Think I will put my veg plot down the back of the garden, smaller and less wide than I have now and build a low wall. But I just know I will get even more shade.

Do update the blog when your garden has been finished (silly me, a garden is never finished) with some new photos? We'd all love to see : o )

Funny about the shade, ours doesn't actually have any shade when you need it most - and from the photos yours doesn't look like a shady garden either. Tho the left hand fence does look very high.

Work is very slowly getting started Weeding. Kinda got a garden plan drawn out. Did think about hiring someone to do it for me, but changed my mind; gonna do it myself!!Bought a bench and a rose bush. Veggies growing so can't move my beds yet; but I am thinking about it

Good for you!
My great achievement here has been trimming the very lo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-ong beech hedge on one side, and now I have no excuse really not to start the extremely prickly mixed hedge on our other side. I'm putting it off because I know how much it will scratch and stab and fight back, lol. x

Get the gloves ready Weeding. Mind you to be honest I find gardening gloves restrict me. I like to feel my plants!!

yes, unfortunately even with big thick gloves injuries are frequent