If your garden, or a part of it, is drenched in sunshine for most of the day, and the ground and plant pots dry out quickly, then a Mediterranean-style garden may be the one for you. The essential ingredients for this particular look are as follows:
1. A cool seating area
This may be under a pergola covered with climbing plants or – for a low-maintenance fashionable option – a ‘sail’ stretched between posts. Additionally, a water feature will cool the air nearby, especially if the water is moving, as in a fountain or a waterfall.
2. Terracotta pots, urns and vases
Use them as focal points, or for growing plants: small citrus trees (not hardy!), olive or bay laurel. Whether plain or ornamented, it pays to invest in frost-resistant pots.
3. Drought-resistant plants
There are many to choose from but to get the right look you cannot go wrong with lavender, rosemary, sage, catmint, Yucca, Cistus, Phlomis or Agapanthus. For something bigger, try a hardy palm or two, or the narrow Italian pencil cypress. Low box hedges and clipped topiary will provide visual contrast to the flowering plants.
4. Gravel
Instead of lawn, use gravel with patches of thyme here and there, pebbles, cobbles, loose or cemented in. Remember to spread weed-suppressing fabric under loose gravel. Or how about designing and creating your own pebble mosaic? Or using painted tiles for that Spanish/ Moorish touch? It’s time to get creative.
5. Locally in Kent
You will find it at Leeds Castle near Maidstone in Kent, in The Lady Baillie Mediterranean terrace garden. The castle and the grounds are open to visitors all year round, on annual passes (www.leeds-castle.com)
Lady Baillie’s Garden at Leeds Castle near Maidstone, Kent