When Jo and Simon Rutherford moved into their recently built home, the garden was a bare lawn going up to the fence line. They have transformed the space by using basic DIY tips and easy-to-grow plants. With tips for wide or shallow gardens. This garden is open 14th May in Whitstable in Kent, via the National Garden Scheme. See:https://findagarden.ngs.org.uk/garden/33777/whitstable-joy-lane-gardens
Jo is a professional gardener and her website is: http://www.thehelpfulgardener.co.uk
00:00 Welcome
00:29 Jo Rutherford gardens at http://www.thehelpfulgardener.co.uk
00:49 The garden ‘before’
01:24 Take time to think about the garden and assess how you use the space
01:40 A diagonal design for a wide, shallow garden
02:22 Paint the fence dark to make it ‘recede’
02:57 Replacing ugly concrete pavers
03:57 Inexpensive planting
06:07 Easy DIY upcycling ideas
06:19 Wine bottle edging
07:04 Brick edging
07:44 In a wide, shallow garden you don’t need to hide the veg bed
07:55 A pallet ‘window box’ style planter and ladder with pots
09:13 Add wildlife friendly features to a new build garden
09:58 An easy ‘bug hotel ball’ from hanging baskets
10:44 Paint and upcycling second-hand garden furniture
11:22 A rustic arch made from fallen branches, bamboo and willow
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23 Comments
Loads of helpful tips in this video! Wish I could bring Jo to Ohio to help me create mine 😊
Hi, Alexandra. Jo has so many good ideas! Thanks for sharing them with us. The simplicity of the little pond, the edgings, the painted fence and the bug hotel make them quite appealing to me. Love your channel.
I love the use of diagonals. Thank you to both of you for sharing this lovely garden.
Love the way Jo recycle & upcycle all the unwanted and given them a new life. Her garden looks fabulous even on a small scale. Tnx Alexandra.
I love the idea of placing garden beds on the diagonal. It really looks great and tricks the eye. Thanks for the tip.
Some really great ideas to take away from this fab garden. Thank you, Jo and Alexandra!
Love the sky blue-bright green combo of Forget-me-nots and Euphorbia.
Really enjoyed this, very applicable to my wide and shallow garden which has been sorely neglected for many years before we moved in, is completely plain, and I’m making a start on an overhaul. I have already dug up weed-infested turf for a vegetable garden, and bought some dark grey fence paint last week…great to see my fairly clueless decisions vindicated!
Seconding what an earlier poster said– I so appreciate that you show us lovely, relatable, attainable garden spaces. Jo & Simon have created a unique, inviting space and I'm definitely inspired by some of the DIYs! The wine bottle edging and the bug ball (how did I not know about these??) are especially fun touches I'm now itching to add to our garden.
Beautiful garden! I have an opposite problem, wide open yard to fields and and there’s no ideas for creating natural backdrops to blend the areas.
I love this garden. It's natural and beautiful, and also quite easily achievable for us ordinary gardeners! Definitely one of my favourites.
Such a fun garden! Thank you for sharing!!
Really enjoyed this ! Thank you so much, for the time and effort you put into bringing us great content.
I have a garden exactly like this, shallow and wide. Im struggling to know what to do with it, wpyld it be possible to do a video on how to design gardens like this? Ideas and tips would be very much appreciated
I would paint the concrete posts the same colour you will be amazed how better it looks. a tip I got of Charlie Dimock many years ago!
I was wondering if you would be able to show any success stories of garden after knotweed treatment. Is it possible to recover it and have a nice garden after treatment?
I'm not a fan of the black fence. I'd have put trellis up on it and planted climbers.
This was a lovely video. Beautiful garden Jo and Simon. Thank you so much for the tour. I hope you didn't get too trampled by the tour on May 14th! thank you Alexandra, enjoy all your videos. By the way what a wonderful business Jo, "Gardner Helper".
So lovely , I dont like seeing the fences so I would plant laurels or climbers to cover it up.
Good tip for getting annoying labels off stuff – use an hairdryer! 😊 Lovely garden thank you for sharing! My favourite bit is the ladder area and the pallete x
I discovered your channel a few weeks ago – brilliant tips and tricks for the every man gardener and his garden just for people like me – just go on like that, perfect, warm grz frm belgium
Some excellent ideas in there. Thank you so much.
I am watching it again – a brilliant, brilliant little garden, even with veg section. Love it.