This article might be worth a read
https://www.paramountplants.co.uk/blog/index.php/creating-a-japanese-garden/

I love a gravel garden. The sleepers could be used to create a fan pattern set into the gravel like the image below (I did similar in my last garden). Also you could buy the book abotu Beth Chatto's garden or even pay it a visit.

Oh, lovely :-) Good start! I'd say you need a water feature, patio decking, perhaps with a pergola to give you some shade, ornamental grasses would be great, stepping stones perhaps. If you want to add some more privacy you could use either trellis screens dotted around the patio area for example, or even wooden poles to act as a screen (I'll see if I can find an example of that too)

And some more ideas...

Oh yes, Sonia is right, you do need to take the conditions into account with your planting. I've been to Beth Chatto's garden. It's beautiful. There are so many lovely drought and sun tolerant plants.

Thanks both for your comments..... that was my worry with it being south facing😢

mmmmm will have to rethink , my problem is Im not keen on ‘flowers' as such and prefer just green plants ....grasses,hostas ferns etc .

Thinking maybe of a path leading from the gate round the Acer and leading towards the corner where the poorly birch is.

would love one of those windy stream features but guessing too hot and sunny .

Trouble is my ideas and my budget don’t match lol , hey ho will carry on perusing all the gardens on here and try to come up with a cunning plan 🧐🧐

Stachys, Rosemary, juniper, yucca and lots of grasses, sedums... they’ll do well

Grasses love sunshine, so how about a prairie garden with grasses interspersed with flowers? Some flowers are architectural, like Globe Thistles and Crocosmia. Herbs will grow really well in a sunny site. This is a prairie garden with a gravel path.

Any of the Mediterranean plants like rosemary, lavender, santolina, curry plant (Helichrysum italicum) will do well in dry conditions and they are not too flowery. I seem to remember seeing fennel grow wild in dry soil in Greece. That’s tall and kind of architectural. I bet there’s a euphorbia that would do well too. They always seemed bombproof to me but we have pretty heavy clay soil in my neighbourhood.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/01/plant-of-the-week-bronze-fennel-foeniculum-vulgare-purpureum

Ooh, a gravel garden! I was reading through this a while ago and 1st thing I also thought was the Beth chatto gardens as well. Also look at knoll gardens, think they specialise in ornamental grasses but have a fab gravel garden display.

But then I started googling about Japanese and South East Asian gardens, their history and aesthetics etc. Well several hours later and I’m enlightened..... fascinating stuff 🙂.

As a small summary I gather that Japanese gardens are intensely manicured and maintained and like a much larger landscape but in a miniaturised form.

Doesnt mean you have to go full on with one style tho. I think mixing different elements can be good thing.

You could also look at Desert style gardens (California, Arizona for eg.) for inspiration, not all their plants are suited for UK climate but there are always alternatives.

I could go on for ages with ideas but I’ll just show some more inspo pics.

Crevice garden great for alpine plants, sedums, sempervivums.....

paving in gravel idea

And you could also use a different colour gravel or larger pebbles to emulate water

Hi Rachel!

Thank you so much for the time you took to find those photos and read up on Japanese gardens, I find them so calming and peaceful looking , just a shame a south facing garden isn’t ideal !! They are spot on with how I am thinking of going 😊

I find it very difficult trying to visualise things and need to see an exact photo or picture for me to get It !

we’ve decided against a patio in the corner as we just wouldn’t use it as we tend to use our other garden area or sit and watch our Chickens in their run!

So far I’ve decided to take the gravel right up to the fences so eliminate any bare soil..... then go from there lol.

Oh and finish painting the never ending fence panels !

Any more thoughts or ideas would be amazing 😄

Suzi 🐣

Well, I think you need to design the garden with islands of plants and the gravel as a river flowing through is. This is why they have the larger stones, as stepping stones to cross the ‘river’. You could also use Azaleas, very Japanese and they can ope with sunny spots. They need acidic soil. Did you already have Pinus sylvestris? Think that‘ll go very well.

But the most important thing is the island structure with the gravel river, I think. So I suggest you’ll lay a rope through your gravel to see where you would like your river to flow and then create a couple of planted islands, some large, some smaller, and go from there. There are creeping plants for sunny spots that can mimic the moss for example.

And do see if you can incorporate a water feature. A tub dug into the ground to hold the water with a pump and a rock or bowl on top to pump the water through. Simple, but effective. You only need electricity. Or a sun powered pump.

Sorry for typos, I was throwing the ball for the dog while typing 😂

If you’re looking more for a Zen garden, this is an interesting read https://freshpatio.com/backyard-zen-garden-diy/

Saxifraga for example is a good ground covering plant that could work as 'moss' perhaps

Thanks Carolina 😊 Think im finally getting the ideas in my head and would love a water feature but would have to be solar powered .

Last nights laying awake at 3am vision was move all the old gravel from around the middle tree and make a large circle with edgings and have smaller gravel in the middle to be able to do the zen patterns , then have the planting in the area surrounding it.

who knows what tonight’s vision will be lol

Thought the aerial phots might help see a better idea of the size ,shape of the garden 👍

So, I was thinking along these lines, just to give you a visual of how it comes together if you define shapes. You might want the 'islands' somewhere else and shaped differently. I think that laying out shapes with rope will help you enormously to get an idea of how the garden will feel.

Hope it helps:

Thanks so much Carolina!!! It definitely shows me what it could look like 😃

You're welcome 🙂