Well trimmed shrubs that create a pattern. PHOTOS | COURTESY
What you need to know:
Turn your lawn into beautiful shapes, formal, minimalist with visual allure.
A geometric garden design might appear plain and dull, but to others, especially the neat-freaks, it is pure discreet beauty in a suburb home or a commercial compound.
For geometric gardens, the beauty is in the arc-shaped grass, the love-shaped miniature trees, the rectangular-trimmed flowers— structurally arranged and cut.
At the mere mention of a geometric design thoughts of serenity and classiness come to mind, local high-end landscapers say.
“Geometric gardening is the art of using symmetry and imposing order on nature by converting the general area outline or edge of your garden space into forms and shapes that bring visual order,” said James Munuve of Jaria Hortscapes.
This type of gardening originated from France.
It is also known as the French formal garden or as the French call it jardin a’ la francaise (garden in the French manner).
Visual theme
Mr Munuve said that it involves establishing the exact edges of spaces incorporated in the design and using consistency, repetition and harmony as principles to create a visual theme.
Michael Kabiah, a director at Mika Landscapers which also does geometric garden said ‘‘a good landscape starts with a good design.”
The two agree that geometric gardening is not your ordinary landscaping practice.
“Good results can only be attained by hiring a professional landscape architect,” said Mr Munuve.
He said that many of their high-end clients in Kenya are optimising their roofs and other small surroundings with definite outlines to create geometric-like gardens.
If you want to grow shapes in your lawn, a pro will guide you through a well thought design process, considering the form and composition of plants to attain the symmetry look.
10 per cent
Although there can be a number of themes that can be created , common ones based on geometric shapes include curvilinear, circular, rectangular and diagonal designs.
Others include; angular, arc and tangent geometric shapes.
The average cost of a typical design setting ranges from Sh100 to Sh150 per meter square or about 10 per cent of the value of the garden if one wants comprehensive landscaping.
Geometry gardening requires plants that are easily trimmed to perfect linear forms like circular and rectangular. Varieties like duranta (boxus), the ilux plant, thuja, variegated Japanese’s laurel and cedar, can work well. The latter is an evergreen tree that is commonly used to create various forms of shapes.
You are advised to go for deciduous and evergreen plants as the latter will give you an all-year-round hedge while deciduous will give varied colours year-round; just ensure that they are clearly defined.
Zen gardens
You can also never go wrong with roses, lavender and bougainvillea for geometric gardens, Mr Kabiah said, adding that agapanthus, crocosmia, euphorbia, kniphofia, and the clematics can also give you the minimalistic look.
When it comes to shapes, you can mix and match. Diamond shapes on the right, for instance, are offset by a semicircle on their left. Using the same plant material to form the shapes ties the two sides together.
“Be sure to look at the space from all levels. It should be pleasant when you are in the midst of the garden, but it should also be visually interesting to look into the garden from outside or to view it from above,” he said.
Someone who loves Japanese zen gardens, would “definitely” love these French gardens, he said.
For Mika Landscapers, they fix a geometric garden at no lesser than Sh80,000 upwards depending on the project size, availability of plants and the design.
