Garden Ideas
Gardening is a rewarding and creative way to connect with nature while transforming outdoor (or even indoor) spaces into vibrant, green sanctuaries. Whether you're working with a spacious garden, a small balcony, or just a few sunny windowsills, there are endless gardening ideas to suit every lifestyle and skill level.
At Thompson's Garden Centre, each season we create garden idea displays to help inspire you to get the most from your garden. Below are some garden examples and how you can go about achieving the look for your garden.
Bee Happy - Wildlife Garden
Bees are vital to a thriving garden because they pollinate plants, helping them grow and reproduce. This leads to more fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Without bees, many plants would struggle, so welcoming them supports both your garden and the ecosystem.
How to achieve the look
Plants are key to attracting bees, try using Lavender, Heathers, Hydrangea, Buddleja, Digitalis, Penstemon to name but a few. Group plants together in a border or plant up multiple pots with a choice of pollinating plants for bees to explore. Give them a safe haven by creating a bug hotel for them to visit! We've used old logs, bricks, broken pots & pallets to create a shelter for them.
Woodland Garden
A woodlands-themed garden brings the peaceful beauty of the forest to your outdoor space, with shady trees, ferns and natural pathways. This style creates a calm, earthy atmosphere, perfect for relaxation and wildlife. Using native plants and organic textures, a woodland garden feels like a quiet escape into nature, right in your own back garden.
How to achieve the look
If you're garden is mostly situated in shade, then a Woodland theme is ideal for you. We've used ferns like Dryopteris and Polystichum coupled with shade loving plants like Heuchera for their year round foliage and then a splash of colour with Cyclamen. Paths can be created with bark chips, and we've re-used logs to line the pathways. You could also use old tree stumps cut up to make unique stepping stones.
Rock Around the Plot
A rockery garden, embraces the beauty of rugged natural landscapes by blending stones, gravel, low-growing alpine plants and conifers into a harmonious outdoor display. This garden theme celebrates texture and contrast, with weathered rocks providing a striking backdrop for groundcover plants. Ideal for sunny, well-drained areas, a rockery garden is the perfect choice for those seeking a low-maintenance yet visually captivating landscape.
How to achieve the look
We've used a few strategically placed rockery stones, used for their unique texture and shapes, to help create a rockery garden. A small space in your garden can be instantly transformed with a few additional low growing conifers, heathers and Alpine plants such as Phlox or Saxifraga and a splash of colour with Pansies.
Lavender Garden
Planting a lavender garden is a wonderful way to add beauty, fragrance, and functionality to your outdoor space. Lavender not only offers stunning purple blooms and a calming scent, but it also attracts pollinators like bees and butterflies, supporting local ecosystems. They are drought-tolerant and low-maintenance, making them perfect for sustainable gardening.
How to achieve the look
For maximum effect try lining a pathway with lavender. As you brush past the scent is released into the air! Alternatively, group a few together in a border or plant them in pots on your patio. English Lavender is sweetly scented with angustifolia and Hidcote varieties being hugely popular. French Lavender has more showy blooms, try Helmsdale or Devonshire.
