The English garden architect Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932 )was the founder of the English cottage garden which simply means that she was about the first to group perennials and thus compose the now traditional English border. In sloping England she often had to deal with height differences, she preferred to plant her borders on flat areas.

Anyone who visits extant gardens by Jekyll will see that she was very creative with these height differences. She masonry walls in which plants spread in the porous joints (think wall snapdragon, thrush, red valerian and yellow hellebore, Cymbalaria muralis, Erigeron karvinskianus, Centranthus ruber and Corydalis lutea, respectively). At the top of the wall she put plants that droop and at the foot plants that climb. A height difference was thus completely incorporated into the green environment. This principle can be applied to both low and high walls, only the choice of plants will differ.

Over the years, height differences have been accommodated in ever-changing ways. Jekyll chose to eliminate them naturally, but of course a retaining wall can also serve to enhance a design. A wall that absorbs height differences can serve as a line of width or depth, can form the quiet background of a mixed border or can radiate pure silence by not planting anything on, in or under it. As a freestanding element.

If you don't like stones, plant a hedge against that wall so it looks like the hedge is holding back the earth. Modest height differences can also be accommodated with lawn, sleek or not sloping. In short, height differences are often seen by designers as stumbling blocks, but the most creative designers know how to turn such a stumbling block into a garden component with added value.