A low-slung planting scheme allows this rural garden to make the most of its countryside surroundings

Talking gardens with Lisa Lempsink is a joy. She radiates passion for her subject, with all the knowledge and creativity of her two decades as a designer. Case in point: this Kinross garden that’s full of pretty planting.

“It’s an open, sunny, south-facing garden in Kinross surrounded by farmland and fields, with views over to Loch Leven in one direction,” says Lisa. “As a result of that openness, it can be very windy and quite cold. We were working with almost coastal conditions, despite being far inland, so we needed to establish lots of tough plants.”

The owner wanted the garden to be private and wildlife friendly and require relatively little in the way of maintenance. There’s a public right-of-way running down one side, so the designer’s first task was to extend an existing hedge to create a natural barrier against ramblers and peepers.

Elsewhere, though, height was deliberately restricted. “We did something very basic when we were working out the planting scheme in our Kinross garden,” Lisa explains. “I asked the client to sit in a chair on the patio and we held up a measuring tape to check what she could see. We took a measurement of where she could see over the tape and used this as the absolute maximum height for the plants.”

This results in the eye being drawn naturally over the meticulous planting, past the boundaries of the garden and out to the countryside beyond. This ‘borrowed landscape’ method has been used for centuries to create a seamless look.

The client’s house is quite linear and angular, so Lisa decided to play with organic shapes. “The land beyond is soft – lots of swerves and contours,” she says. “The Kinross garden acts as a bridge between the sharp house and the soft countryside. I started with a circular bed, which is the most formal aspect of the garden.”

The planting in both borders is identical and the central bed is edged with Imperata rubra ‘Red Baron’ grass. “It’s a fantastic short grass that only grows to 30cm tall. It starts off green and becomes blood-red as the summer goes on. It’s very translucent, too, so it’s beautiful in the sunlight. I think it looks magical.”

A hot palette of reds and oranges benefits from a few touches of purple and blue (“The client loves lavender”) and the area nearest the house has more of a woodland feel with small trees and astilbes.

Considering the owner requested a low-maintenance garden, it is quite densely planted; this, though, is actually to help with the suppression of weeds. “All my clients ask for a low-maintenance garden,” laughs Lisa.

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