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Most UK gardens are square or rectangular. Most are lawned, with beds around the edges. Every now and again, you’ll find someone’s been rebellious enough to plant something in the middle!

This garden is a square box. But you'd never guess!

If that’s your garden and you’re completely bored of it, you probably don’t know where to start. Here’s five easy tips to make a dull garden into something a bit special:

• A great way to change the appearance of a square and make it more interesting is to use circles. Trim your lawn into a circle, or create two or three circles of lawn joined by circular stepping stones. Cut circular beds into your lawn. Give your boring beds curved edges. Plant a curved line of evergreens to create shade, make a round pond…  
• Disguise the corners. Put tall, bushy plants in the corners - they’ll help you create a more rounded, soft look.
• Build your basic structure using evergreens. They’re beautiful, varied and tough. Use evergreens as the basis of your design and your garden will look great all year round. Create seating areas, divide your garden into ‘rooms’, hide compost heaps and conceal ugly sheds behind an evergreen screen.
• Be brave enough to plant things in the middle! Not bang in the middle. Symmetry, unless you want a classical look, is visually dull. Cut different-shaped holes in your lawn and pop in trees, shrubs and flowers of different heights. Create mysteries and surprises. Reveal your garden bit by bit by interrupting your view.
• Break the rules. Accepted wisom says you’re supposed to plant high plants at the back, lower ones at the front. If you do the opposite, you create the most amazing little mini-views. Peeping through the taller plants to the shorter ones further back gives you a whole different dimension, and creates even more mystery.  

A few more things:

If you don’t like what you’ve done, you can change it. Plants are amazingly tough and it’s actually quite difficult to kill them. And most of them really don’t mind being moved.