Gardens featured in magazines, we argue, lack the raw dynamism of a garden. Leaf litter, the occasional weed and a plant that sorely needs some TLC are not things you will find featured in the cover shots that glorify their pages. Instead manicured lawns, topiaried hedges and annual borders that flower more prolifically than the florists wholesale markets become a little...well...ho-hum after a while.

Is there any value in picking up another issue? Or, are you sadistically wired that you enjoy the de-motivating effect they have on your own gardening efforts?

Sure there is. Those pictures that seem so fake and maladjusted can actually breathe some life into your own garden - if you're willing to view them from another perspective. While we normally make comparisons between the illustrated garden and our own, in reality we will probably never achieve that glam demeanor - and honestly, who would want to?

Magazine gardens, from my vantage point, offer something incredibly unique - how NOT to design a garden. Basically, they are the antithesis to my own garden dreams and therefore provide a wealth of inspiration and an exceptional example of what a garden shouldn't look like.

Here's a little sample of what magazine gardens portray and how my own differs;

• Heavy maintenance - unless you have a team of horticulturalists on hand trying to achieve a garden that could even jockey for a middle-page snapshot, you're more than likely to produce stomach ulcers rather than that picture perfect outcome.

  I love to pour over magazine gardens and think through all that would be required to create and maintain that look. Then, if I find myself lusting after the result I ask myself the question, "Am I prepared to pay the cost to get that?" The answer is always an unequivocal "NO". I love to garden, but I don't live to garden.



• Magazine gardens are always easy to photograph - mine, on the other hand, is not. And I like it that way. The gardens that feature in magazines are usually quite open, well-spread and fairly minimalist in design.

  My garden hugs me every time I enter it and it feels like I'm walking the red carpet towards the Oscars. My personal space becomes invaded by the crowd of plants and shrubbery jostling for me to stop and adore the new growth or flower that's just bloomed.

  It's very hard to photograph that...



• Minimal specimens - you'll notice that most of these gardens have only a few specimens on display. Large drifts of the same plant, symmetrical positioning that catches the eye and mono -coloured bulbs that consume vast regions of the garden. It's as if the whole garden has been designed purely for show purposes much like your local wildflower exhibition.

  Indeed, my garden is more about the plants than the style - not that it's devoid of landscaping eye-candy. But, to just grow one type of plant over a large area seems like an immoral waste of garden. These gardens inspire me to use plants more effectively than to go with contemporary thinking.

I'm sure there are many other ways that these gardens inspire me to be different and perhaps I'll share some more in future posts. In the meantime, how do magazine gardens affect your choices and garden style?