Garden design - creating access

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When you design your garden, it's important to have access to your plants from both sides. This photo was taken from the back of where my cannas are planted, by the dining room window. The best advice that I ever got was to design everything like a perennial border - with a width of no more than six feet.

Six feet is the key number here as it gives you access of three feet on each side (the length of your arms) without ever having to step into the garden bed. The access from the back can be just wide enough to squeeze yourself in, and the access from the front is where your visitors will stand when they walk up to your plants. If you don't provide access, your visitors will have no choice but to walk up into your garden beds, and you will be unable to get in there to do any type of trimming without walking into the garden beds yourself.

Like a perennial border, it's wise to have the short plants in front and the tall ones in back. The tall ones, of course, perform the function of hiding the *backstage area*, so if you've never seen it, or thought about it, well, that's the point. When you visit a garden, take a look at the access. The gardeners can't hover over the area in a helicopter, they need to get in there, for trimming, fertilizing, and weeding. And there has to be access.
Here is the canna area as viewed from the front



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