Call for better large garden advice

Garden designer Andrew Fisher Tomlin has called for more advice to be available to people with larger gardens to encourage them to make productive use of their asset and not sell them for development.

Andrew said "As a company we're lucky much of our work is in the green belt but increasingly we find clients daunted by the prospect of a large garden. Eventually some think it would be better to sell off part of the garden to developers. Whilst we need space for homes we're losing a great natural asset."

Andrew believes whilst there's plenty of focus on small garden design and landscaping there's a growing need to support large garden owners.

"Often owners of these gardens are coming up for retirement and want to know how to look after the garden as they age. There are some great organisations like Thrive helping people carry on gardening but more advice on low maintenance ideas would help."

Andrew's top five tips for reducing the maintenance and cost of a large garden include:
• Cut out weekly lawn cutting by establishing longer grass areas, planting wild flower plugs and bulbs to encourage wildlife.
• Turn over neglected areas of the garden to orchard trees.
• Share your garden with young people who don't have their own garden by sharing the harvested produce.
• Introduce more shrubs into borders to reduce the maintenance created by the trend towards big perennial borders.
• Plant with water wise methods using dense planting to retain moisture in the ground and cut the need for irrigation.

www.andrewfishertomlin.com.