Understanding landscape layering is key to creating beautiful gardens that feel natural and cohesive. It involves using a wide variety of plants arranged into a foreground, middle ground, and background to add depth and visual interest to your garden.
When you see these stunning gardens in magazines or Instagram posts, they almost always rely on thoughtful layering. If you’ve ever wondered why your own garden doesn’t look quite as good, it’s often not for a lack of plants, but rather a lack of layering.
In this article, we cover the key principles of landscape layering so you can confidently apply them yourself.
Use the Landscape Layering Garden Pyramid
The Landscape Layering Garden Pyramid can help you understand how to get started with layering and what should go where.
Top Layer
This layer is the tallest and will be a permanent feature in your garden.
- Trees, large shrubs or feature plants.
- They provide structure, privacy, and shade.
- Are a focal point in your garden, creating vertical interest and can be an ideal backdrop.
Middle Layer
The mid-level layer adds body to your garden.
- Medium shrubs, ornamental grasses, and flowing bushes.
- Adds texture, colour and can change from season to season.
- Able to connect large top-layer plants to smaller ground-level plants in your bottom layer.
Bottom Layer
This layer is made up of ground-level plants and is the base of the landscape layering pyramid. It’s able to soften edges and tie everything together.
- Groundcovers, perennials, low shrubs and edging plants.
- Help suppress weeds and reduce visible soil.
- Connects your garden bed and improves continuity.
Key Points of Landscape Layering
There are a few key points to consider when layering your landscape. You should think about repetition, scale, flow, depth and optimal number of plants for the size of your garden.
Repetition
Repetition is a great way to bring visual cohesion to a landscape and prevent it from looking too cluttered or chaotic. This can be done by planting in groups or “drifts” rather than individual plants scattered throughout the garden. Repeating the same plant species at different intervals is a good way to help naturally guide the eye over the space, without anything looking jarring.
You don’t necessarily have to repeat the same species of plants everywhere. You can also repeat:
- Colour palettes: Using the same coloured flowers helps with repetition. Different shades of yellow/orange flowers can work great together and help everything feel more connected, compared to mixing different colours with little thought.
- Leaf shapes and texture: Choosing plants that have similar-shaped leaves can also create repetition. Using similar-textured plants also helps with this.
- Height of plants: Using plants that grow to a similar height can help your garden feel more unified. You can also repeat patterns going from a low plant to a higher one, then back to a smaller plant.
Repetition can help to create rhythm and can make a large or complex garden feel like it was planned out and not just randomly thrown together.
Scale
The scale of plants in comparison to one another is another key feature to consider. Plants that are too small can sometimes end up looking lost, while plants that are too big can overwhelm your garden and cover other plants.
- Size mature plants will be: Consider what size the plant will grow to when it has fully matured. Large plants can work well in a flower bed, but too many of them can cover smaller plants and end up overpowering them.
- Size of your garden: Measure the height and width of your garden beds, so you know how much space you have.
- Surrounding space: Find out how close your garden bed will be to things like buildings, paths, and fences.
A garden that has been effectively scaled can help you transition from smaller to larger plants and ensure everything feels balanced and proportional from every angle.
Flow
Flow is how your eye looks over the landscape. A well-layered garden should feel connected and not a random selection of unrelated plants jumbled together.
Flow can be achieved by:
- Repeating species or colours: This can help things evenly flow through your garden.
- Curving bed lines: Instead of having sharp and abrupt edges, steel lawn edging can be curved, which can be easier on the eye.
- Subtle overlapping: Letting plants gently overlap can help with continuity.
Considering flow when layering landscaping can help it feel unified, with each area naturally connecting to the others.
Depth
Depth adds dimension to your garden and can make it look far more interesting. Instead of planting everything in straight rows, you can stagger plants both front to back and side to side. This layering style helps make your garden appear fuller and more natural.
Depth can be improved by:
- Positioning taller plants closer to the centre: Taller plants placed near edges can hide what is growing behind them, so planting them closer to the middle avoids overpowering your garden.
- Place low-growing plants near the front and edges: Putting smaller plants near the front ensures they’ll be visible.
- Mixing textures: The texture of plants can help add depth and should not be ignored. You can play soft textures off of hard ones and unite groups of plants or make certain ones stand out.
- Raised sections: Your garden doesn’t all have to be set at one level. Raised garden beds can enhance the appearance and add another level of depth and layering.
Depth improves aesthetics and increases the space you have for your plants, and can soften hard lines near paths and walls.
If your space is limited, it’s more difficult to create layers. You’ll need to choose a lot of smaller shrubs and plants that don’t take up too much space, or find ways to expand the depth of your garden beds in certain places.
Number of Plants
You should make sure your garden bed is filled with enough plants to create a full and visually appealing landscape. Garden beds with areas that don’t have enough plants can look bare, unfinished, and disjointed, breaking the flow of your design.
Planting in groups rather than individual plants can help you fill out your garden bed more evenly. This can also help you to think about repetition and layering. Groundcovers and low shrubs can be used to close gaps, and they also suppress weeds. This can help your garden feel more connected and lush.
Integrate Your Home into the Landscape
An easy mistake people make is not thinking about their house when creating a garden. Making your home look like it’s part of the landscape can help things to flow much more naturally. A great way to achieve this is by placing large plants around the corners of your home so it seems like it’s nestled into the landscape.
Depth can also be improved by bringing your garden beds out to around 5-6 feet from your home’s foundation. If you have more space, you could even try 10-12 feet. The more depth you have, the more choices you’ll have when choosing your plants.
Enhance Layering in Your Garden With Steel Landscaping Co.
When creating well-layered landscapes, you should think about how well the plants will work together as a whole.
At Steel Landscaping Co., we have over 30 years’ experience in supplying and installing steel garden products.
Our combined 60 years of fabrication experience mean that we build naturally eco-friendly products, as each steel piece is built to last a lifetime or more, using steel sourced from net-zero committed steel production partners.
From steel edging options and estate fencing to metal garden gates and steel tree guards, we have a range of design options to suit all tastes.
Get in touch with us to discuss your needs, or browse our online shop.