To describe the garden of Sandra Blickett’s home in Ewell, Surrey, as a blank canvas is an understatement. Its dominant feature is a big bright blue trampoline used by her children, Daniel, 10, and Amy, 14. Otherwise, the garden is mostly given over to lawn and is not a thing of beauty.

For Blickett, 43, though, help is at hand, as she is the lucky winner of our competition to receive a consultation with Home’s Root Master, garden designer Matt James, whose series of articles aimed at helping beginner gardeners appeared at the end of last year.

Now James has dropped round to offer his advice, much to Blickett’s delight, for she is the first to acknowledge that her gardening skills are rudimentary, to say the least. Since the family moved in four years ago, she and her husband, John, 43, a civil servant, have been concentrating on doing up their 1960s house.

In its present state, the 80ft x 30ft garden has little to get excited about. There are a couple of ponds, one of which is sited where a new extension will be erected, so it will have to go. The other, which is kidney shaped, is further down the garden and reached by a meandering narrow concrete path, etched to look like crazy paving. It’s a typical case of 1960s cutting-edge design badly translated into suburbia.

A line of tall cupressus conifers creates a screen at the bottom of the garden, and there are trees and shrubs planted along the perimeter fence in varying states of health and happiness — the branches of an apple tree, for instance, are bent almost at 45 degrees in their search for light under an overgrown leylandii.

It could be worse: the garden gets plenty of sunlight and is a good size. The soil is a nice sandy silt loam, so, plantwise, “the world is your oyster”, says James. He recommends that Blickett takes out most of what is in the garden: the ponds, concrete paths and patio, the stray leylandii that is crippling the apple tree, a line of diseased beech hedge stumps and the narrow raised beds around the fences that are in a state of collapse and are no good to man nor plant. It might seem radical but there is no point in working with sickly specimens or hideous hard landscaping.

Blickett is relieved that his edits don’t take in the tall beech tree in the far corner of the garden, of which she is very fond, or the cupressus, which would expose her to the neighbours’ view. Although they are not particularly attractive, they provide a good backdrop for the rest of the garden to work against.

“One thing I notice when I walk into the garden is that you see the whole thing at once,” says James. “You don’t explore. Cutting into the space will give you that sense of wondering what is round the corner and going on a journey.” Dividing up the space into different zones — even by simply putting in a border or a wall halfway down the garden, to jut out from the edge into the centre of the garden — would break up the space and instantly create a sense of mystery.

An ornamental tree, such as Prunus serrula, one of James’s favourites — “it has a beautiful bark you want to polish” — would add another layer to occupy the eye in this central space, which is at present devoid of any interest at all, unless you are keen on crazy-paved paths and coarse lawn. He also suggests ornamental crab apples, such as Malus × moerlandsii ‘Profusion’ and ‘Katherine’; they are good for small gardens, as their blossom and autumn colouring provide lots to look at.

Blickett is keen on decking the seating area near the house, which is covered in concrete. “Decking is a lot cheaper than paving,” admits James, but he is worried that it might date and look a little redundant just jutting out into the garden. However, as Blickett also wants to keep one of the ponds, she could surround it with the decking, with a jetty over the water. “Then there’s a purpose to it,” says James.

An alternative to decking, albeit more expensive, would be a paved terrace at the back of the house, in reclaimed York paving, sandstone or blue lias. “A big expanse of neutral paving is not going to date,” says James. Or Blickett could have both, by paving over the area, then placing the pond, together with decking and jetty, at the far end of the garden.

Giving the garden some structure is not all about hard landscaping. James explains that evergreens are a brilliant way to introduce form and texture, as well as providing something for the family to look out at in winter and early spring, when shrubs such as osmanthus, sarcococca and viburnums come into their own.

Blickett is a fan of the cottage-garden style, all billowing plants and lots of colour. She likes mauves, so James suggests plants such as Verbena bonariensis (excellent for height without taking up much room, and, if it is happy, it will self-seed about the place), thalictrum, heucheras, liatris, sedums, echinacea, forget-me-nots and, his favourites, regal lilies, followed by Lilium ‘Pink Perfection’.

However, masses of perennials and annuals take a lot of work to achieve a thrown-together look, so he suggests she veers slightly off the traditional cottage-garden palette and includes ornamental grasses that will give the garden a slightly more urban feel, appropriate to its setting.

As James points out, “they need virtually no maintenance”. With hotter, drier weather a likely feature of summers to come, he counsels against the more traditional — and thirsty — cottage garden plants, such as delphiniums and lupins.

Blickett looks slightly daunted by all the suggestions but is willing to learn. James suggests she enrols in a gardening course at the local college in order to pick up the basic language. He also suggests that she makes a masterplan for the garden and sticks to it. If she doesn’t want her new borders to look like the crazy paving she is removing, she would be advised to heed James’s advice and buy in large quantities — “Buy 25 of this, 30 of that” — rather than pick up single plants that take her fancy. “Impulse buys are the bane of the gardener,” says James.

At the end of the session, Blickett is full of new enthusiasm for her garden. “It has been very helpful. Matt has inspired me to get out there and actually do something,” she says.

Watch this space.

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