Its hard to think of anything more formal than the symmetrical knot garden, with its crisp miniature hedges of contrasting colors artfully laid out and carefully clipped to resemble the interwoven threads of ancient Celtic knot work. Knot gardens have been a part of traditional garden design for hundreds of years, yet they are rarely seen these days.
To keep the textured, woven effect that is the defining feature of these gardens, the miniature hedges must be clipped and manicured on an almost daily basis. Few of us have time for such obsessive forms of horticulture. For this reason alone, they have fallen from favor and have now largely been replaced by the less labor-intensive yet equally decorative plantings known as parterres.
Parterres are basically knots without the woven effect, and their strong lines and four-season appeal have much to offer the modern gardener. Here we give you an adaptation of the classical knot garden, a pared-down, simplified parterre based on a mid-17th-century English design that you can easily install and maintain, and that will coexist comfortably with looser, less formal plantings.
Traditional knot gardens typically used miniature hedges of contrasting colors, true English dwarf boxwood (Buxus sempervirens 'Suffruticosa'), santolina, and germander (Teucrium chamaedrys) among the most common choices, and purple barberry (Berberis thunbergii) and golden arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis 'Rheingold') offering some newer variations. However, in climates where harsh winters are the norm, dwarf boxwood is not reliably hardy, and miniature hedges of santolina and teucrium will not hold up under the weight of snow.
For our adaptation, therefore, we have chosen to construct the entire knot out of the reliably hardy boxwood, Buxus microphylla 'Winter Gem'. (If 'Winter Gem' is not available, B. x 'Green Gem' or B. sinica var. insularis 'Wintergreen' would be equally good. Or you could use the dwarf Japanese yew Taxus cuspidata 'Nana', although it won't have the liveliness and density of boxwood. In addition to their hardiness, both yew and boxwood are equally happy in sun or shade.
The Best Site Parterres are at their best when viewed from above, even if only slightly from above, so try and locate the planting where you will be able to look down on it. In choosing a site for your knot garden, look for a level spot not too far from the house, somewhere that will be visible year-round from indoors, not just from out on your deck during the summer; knot gardens are beautiful in winter, too.
The evergreen outline of the knot garden we present here makes a perfect frame for massed plantings of annuals, perennials, and even herbs and vegetables (see Editor's Note), so if possible, choose a site that gets plenty of sun. If your property tends toward being shady, you can use the knot as a frame for shade-loving plants: Hostas, astilbes, and impatiens look wonderful grouped within the knot's evergreen framework. Finally, in looking for the ideal site, take into account the possibility that you may later want to extend your planting. Formality has an uncanny habit of growing on you: Once you see how captivating a knot garden can be and what visual enjoyment it provides throughout the seasons, you may find yourself yearning to create another.
Getting Started Our knot garden is a 21x21-foot square (see diagram). The central circle is six feet in diameter, the paths that separate the beds are three feet wide, and the total linear footage of evergreen edging (boxwood or yew) is 165 feet. (We have built a little leeway into this figure; no two plants are the same.)
You have a choice of exactly how many plants to buy. If you buy large specimens and plant them just touching one another, you will instantly achieve the illusion of an established planting, but large plants are much more expensive. By increasing the spacing between plants, you can cut down on the number of plants you will need. You can also cut down on cost by buying young, small specimens (sometimes called slips) and spacing them farther apart. If you do it this way, your miniature hedges will take a few years to knit together, but you will still achieve the "patterned" look right from the start.
To calculate the number of plants you will need, first divide the total linear footage of the knot outline (165 feet) by the average size of the plants you are buying. Then, by adjusting the distance between plants, you can come up with a final number for how many plants to buy. For example, if you are buying 'Winter Green' boxwood with 18-inch-diameter crowns, and planting them crown to crown, you will need to buy 110 plants. If this exceeds your budget, you can cut down on the number of plants needed by adjusting the spacing between them. For example, by spacing the plants one foot apart instead of crown to crown, you will need only 66 plants.
If this still exceeds your budget, you can plant your knot garden in stages, doing just the central circle this year and adding the satellite beds next year. Alternatively, you can lay the whole knot garden out per our plan, but edge with boxwood only those beds your budget will allow, and edge the other beds for this first season with a perennial such as 'Silver Mound' artemisia, or even with massed annuals such as alyssum. In other words, you can do as much or as little as your budget will allow and still have a beautiful, eye-catching knot garden in the first season.
Laying Out the Design Locate the center of the 21-foot-square area and drive in a wooden peg. Attach a three-foot-long string to this central peg and use it to mark out a circle six feet in diameter. (Tip: Once you have described this circle, use orange surveyor's spray paint to keep it visible.) The circle will be your reference point for laying out the remainder of the knot, so the more visible it is, the better.
The easiest way to lay out the four satellite beds is to cut a template from an inexpensive blue tarpaulin to the measurements given (see diagram). Lay the template on the ground and use wooden pegs or spray paint to mark the outline. All the paths that intersect within the knot are three feet wide. Have a piece of wood at hand, marked off at three feet, so that you can check quickly and easily as you go that your paths are of uniform width.
You will need to remove all grass from the central circular bed and the satellite beds once they are laid out. Renting a sod-stripper for the day will help with this otherwise laborious job, and the cost is minimal.
Planting The easiest way to plant hedges, whether miniature or otherwise, is to dig a planting trench, placing the excavated dirt onto a tarpaulin as you go. This gives you the chance to shuffle plants around as needed and also allows you to amend the soil uniformly, if necessary. Boxwood has a fibrous root system, and this makes it relatively easy to transplant into the trench. Water the shrubs well before backfilling your trench.
Plant the central circle first; it will be your reference point for the four satellite beds. Then plant one bed at a time, remembering that the intersecting paths are all three feet wide.
Finishing Touches The overall design calls for something with a little height to be placed in the central bed-a standard rose; a small, carefully pruned tree; a birdbath-even a dense planting of ornamental grass. The delicately variegated Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' is especially attractive against the cool-green boxwood. Plant annuals or perennials in the satellite beds.
Give the newly planted hedges a gentle, conservative clipping just to establish uniform height. (An early summer clipping is usually sufficient to keep the garden looking good, but you may want to give the hedges a light haircut at the end of summer as well.) Then mulch carefully around the base of the hedge, using a good layer of dark, finely milled mulch. Finally, edge the grass crisply all around your new knot garden.
What Will It Cost? The total expense depends on whether you go with young, small plants widely spaced or more-mature ones planted so they touch one another. Remember that you can also build the parterre in stages. Boxwood is more expensive than yew but is much better suited to parterres. Small 15- to 18-inch plants cost around $40 each; large 18- to 24-inch specimens are around $50 to $55 each. Most nurseries will give a "landscaper discount" of 25 percent to 30 percent for a quantity purchase. (Yew plants tend to be much larger than boxwood, so you'll need fewer of them; they are about the same price as the large boxwood.) The total cost would be around $4,000 retail if you buy the biggest plants (deduct up to 30 percent of this for a wholesale discount and you may be lucky enough to spend only $2,800). If you buy smaller plants and space them conservatively, you could spend as little as $3,000 retail (or $2,000 wholesale).
If you are buying large, field-dug boxwood plants, they will probably arrive balled and burlapped-and they're heavy. Be prepared: Rent a handcart at your local rental center. The cost is minimal, and it will make the job of moving the plants infinitely easier.
To keep the textured, woven effect that is the defining feature of these gardens, the miniature hedges must be clipped and manicured on an almost daily basis. Few of us have time for such obsessive forms of horticulture. For this reason alone, they have fallen from favor and have now largely been replaced by the less labor-intensive yet equally decorative plantings known as parterres.
Parterres are basically knots without the woven effect, and their strong lines and four-season appeal have much to offer the modern gardener. Here we give you an adaptation of the classical knot garden, a pared-down, simplified parterre based on a mid-17th-century English design that you can easily install and maintain, and that will coexist comfortably with looser, less formal plantings.
Traditional knot gardens typically used miniature hedges of contrasting colors, true English dwarf boxwood (Buxus sempervirens 'Suffruticosa'), santolina, and germander (Teucrium chamaedrys) among the most common choices, and purple barberry (Berberis thunbergii) and golden arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis 'Rheingold') offering some newer variations. However, in climates where harsh winters are the norm, dwarf boxwood is not reliably hardy, and miniature hedges of santolina and teucrium will not hold up under the weight of snow.
For our adaptation, therefore, we have chosen to construct the entire knot out of the reliably hardy boxwood, Buxus microphylla 'Winter Gem'. (If 'Winter Gem' is not available, B. x 'Green Gem' or B. sinica var. insularis 'Wintergreen' would be equally good. Or you could use the dwarf Japanese yew Taxus cuspidata 'Nana', although it won't have the liveliness and density of boxwood. In addition to their hardiness, both yew and boxwood are equally happy in sun or shade.
The Best Site Parterres are at their best when viewed from above, even if only slightly from above, so try and locate the planting where you will be able to look down on it. In choosing a site for your knot garden, look for a level spot not too far from the house, somewhere that will be visible year-round from indoors, not just from out on your deck during the summer; knot gardens are beautiful in winter, too.
The evergreen outline of the knot garden we present here makes a perfect frame for massed plantings of annuals, perennials, and even herbs and vegetables (see Editor's Note), so if possible, choose a site that gets plenty of sun. If your property tends toward being shady, you can use the knot as a frame for shade-loving plants: Hostas, astilbes, and impatiens look wonderful grouped within the knot's evergreen framework. Finally, in looking for the ideal site, take into account the possibility that you may later want to extend your planting. Formality has an uncanny habit of growing on you: Once you see how captivating a knot garden can be and what visual enjoyment it provides throughout the seasons, you may find yourself yearning to create another.
Getting Started Our knot garden is a 21x21-foot square (see diagram). The central circle is six feet in diameter, the paths that separate the beds are three feet wide, and the total linear footage of evergreen edging (boxwood or yew) is 165 feet. (We have built a little leeway into this figure; no two plants are the same.)
You have a choice of exactly how many plants to buy. If you buy large specimens and plant them just touching one another, you will instantly achieve the illusion of an established planting, but large plants are much more expensive. By increasing the spacing between plants, you can cut down on the number of plants you will need. You can also cut down on cost by buying young, small specimens (sometimes called slips) and spacing them farther apart. If you do it this way, your miniature hedges will take a few years to knit together, but you will still achieve the "patterned" look right from the start.
To calculate the number of plants you will need, first divide the total linear footage of the knot outline (165 feet) by the average size of the plants you are buying. Then, by adjusting the distance between plants, you can come up with a final number for how many plants to buy. For example, if you are buying 'Winter Green' boxwood with 18-inch-diameter crowns, and planting them crown to crown, you will need to buy 110 plants. If this exceeds your budget, you can cut down on the number of plants needed by adjusting the spacing between them. For example, by spacing the plants one foot apart instead of crown to crown, you will need only 66 plants.
If this still exceeds your budget, you can plant your knot garden in stages, doing just the central circle this year and adding the satellite beds next year. Alternatively, you can lay the whole knot garden out per our plan, but edge with boxwood only those beds your budget will allow, and edge the other beds for this first season with a perennial such as 'Silver Mound' artemisia, or even with massed annuals such as alyssum. In other words, you can do as much or as little as your budget will allow and still have a beautiful, eye-catching knot garden in the first season.
Laying Out the Design Locate the center of the 21-foot-square area and drive in a wooden peg. Attach a three-foot-long string to this central peg and use it to mark out a circle six feet in diameter. (Tip: Once you have described this circle, use orange surveyor's spray paint to keep it visible.) The circle will be your reference point for laying out the remainder of the knot, so the more visible it is, the better.
The easiest way to lay out the four satellite beds is to cut a template from an inexpensive blue tarpaulin to the measurements given (see diagram). Lay the template on the ground and use wooden pegs or spray paint to mark the outline. All the paths that intersect within the knot are three feet wide. Have a piece of wood at hand, marked off at three feet, so that you can check quickly and easily as you go that your paths are of uniform width.
You will need to remove all grass from the central circular bed and the satellite beds once they are laid out. Renting a sod-stripper for the day will help with this otherwise laborious job, and the cost is minimal.
Planting The easiest way to plant hedges, whether miniature or otherwise, is to dig a planting trench, placing the excavated dirt onto a tarpaulin as you go. This gives you the chance to shuffle plants around as needed and also allows you to amend the soil uniformly, if necessary. Boxwood has a fibrous root system, and this makes it relatively easy to transplant into the trench. Water the shrubs well before backfilling your trench.
Plant the central circle first; it will be your reference point for the four satellite beds. Then plant one bed at a time, remembering that the intersecting paths are all three feet wide.
Finishing Touches The overall design calls for something with a little height to be placed in the central bed-a standard rose; a small, carefully pruned tree; a birdbath-even a dense planting of ornamental grass. The delicately variegated Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light' is especially attractive against the cool-green boxwood. Plant annuals or perennials in the satellite beds.
Give the newly planted hedges a gentle, conservative clipping just to establish uniform height. (An early summer clipping is usually sufficient to keep the garden looking good, but you may want to give the hedges a light haircut at the end of summer as well.) Then mulch carefully around the base of the hedge, using a good layer of dark, finely milled mulch. Finally, edge the grass crisply all around your new knot garden.
What Will It Cost? The total expense depends on whether you go with young, small plants widely spaced or more-mature ones planted so they touch one another. Remember that you can also build the parterre in stages. Boxwood is more expensive than yew but is much better suited to parterres. Small 15- to 18-inch plants cost around $40 each; large 18- to 24-inch specimens are around $50 to $55 each. Most nurseries will give a "landscaper discount" of 25 percent to 30 percent for a quantity purchase. (Yew plants tend to be much larger than boxwood, so you'll need fewer of them; they are about the same price as the large boxwood.) The total cost would be around $4,000 retail if you buy the biggest plants (deduct up to 30 percent of this for a wholesale discount and you may be lucky enough to spend only $2,800). If you buy smaller plants and space them conservatively, you could spend as little as $3,000 retail (or $2,000 wholesale).
If you are buying large, field-dug boxwood plants, they will probably arrive balled and burlapped-and they're heavy. Be prepared: Rent a handcart at your local rental center. The cost is minimal, and it will make the job of moving the plants infinitely easier.
Louise Kehoe is a writer and garden designer who lives in Acworth, New Hampshire.
Editor's Note: We're seeing a trend toward more designed and planned gardens, and this parterre is one example. If you don't wish to tackle such an ambitious or costly project but find yourself drawn to this classic design, we suggest you read The Art of the Kitchen Garden, by Jan and Michael Gertley (The Taunton Press, 1999; 203-426-8171; www.taunton.com). It is filled with ideas for using annuals and garden vegetables in designs that mimic the form of the parterre.
by Louise Kehoe Illustration by Margo Letourneau
Create a Knot Garden using Landscape Vision www.landscapeyourvisions.com
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