What Is an Informal Garden Style?
An informal garden style favors a relaxed, naturalistic look over strict order. Instead of straight lines, mirrored planting, and tightly clipped shapes, an informal garden uses curved paths, irregular bed edges, and plants that are largely left to grow in their natural habit. The goal is usually to suggest that the garden developed somewhat on its own, even though a well-designed informal garden still involves real planning behind the scenes.
Informal gardens are sometimes described as asymmetrical or naturalistic gardens, since balance is achieved through visually complementary — rather than mirrored — elements on either side of a space.
Formal vs. Informal Gardens: Key Differences
The clearest way to understand informal design is by contrast with formal design.
A formal garden is generally built around symmetry and a defined central axis, with geometric beds, straight paths, and plants — hedges, topiary — kept clipped into precise shapes. It tends to look more structured and makes a strong impression, but usually needs more frequent, more exacting maintenance to stay looking sharp.
An informal garden relies on curved lines, asymmetrical balance, and plants allowed to keep more of their natural form. It tends to read as softer and more relaxed, and while it isn’t necessarily low-maintenance, the type of upkeep it needs (managing overall growth and self-seeding, rather than precise clipping and edging) is often more forgiving of being a little behind schedule.
A formal garden is sometimes referred to as a symmetrical or geometrical garden, reflecting its reliance on mirrored layouts and defined geometry.
In practice, many real gardens blend both approaches — a more structured area near the house that gradually loosens into informal planting further from the building is a common compromise.
Different Types of Garden Styles (Where Informal Fits In)
“Informal” is a broad category rather than one single look, and it overlaps with several more specific styles. Cottage gardens are a well-known informal style built around dense, colorful, somewhat casual-looking plantings that mix flowers, herbs, and sometimes vegetables. The English landscape garden tradition — associated with sweeping lawns, groves of trees, and water features meant to look naturally occurring — is another influential informal style, though it tends to operate on a much larger scale than a typical home garden. Naturalistic or wildlife-friendly plantings, which lean on native species and looser drifts of perennials and grasses, are a more contemporary take on the same general idea. Japanese and Chinese garden traditions are also often grouped with informal design because they avoid strict symmetry, though they typically follow their own, much more deliberate placement principles rather than a loose or casual approach — so it’s worth treating them as a related but distinct category rather than folding them fully into “informal” as described here. For a broader look at how style choices connect to overall design principles, this introduction to garden design is a useful starting point.
Core Design Principles of Informal Gardens
Curved Lines and Meandering Paths
Paths in an informal garden tend to curve rather than run straight, and bed edges are usually soft and irregular instead of crisply geometric. The effect is meant to feel like a natural trail through planting rather than an engineered route.
Asymmetrical Balance
Rather than mirroring elements on either side of a space, an informal garden balances different but visually comparable “weights” — a larger shrub on one side offset by a grouping of smaller plants on the other, for example. It can look casual, but a garden that achieves this well usually has some real thought behind the placement.
Letting Plants Keep Their Natural Habit
Hedges in an informal garden are typically left untrimmed or only lightly shaped, and individual plants are allowed to grow into their natural form rather than being clipped into geometric shapes. Some structure — occasional pruning for health and size control — is still usually needed, but the overall look avoids a sculpted appearance.
Diverse, Layered Planting
Informal gardens tend to use a broader mix of perennials, grasses, shrubs, and self-seeding plants than a formal garden would, often grouped in loose drifts rather than rigid rows. One gardener’s account of designing a wild, naturalistic border describes repeating certain flowers through a bed for cohesion while otherwise allowing a fairly random mix of annuals, biennials, and perennials, and letting taller plants drift toward the front rather than keeping them strictly at the back — a departure from the more conventional “tall plants at the back” rule, and a reminder that informal design leaves room to break typical guidelines if the overall effect still reads as intentional.
The “70/30” and “3-5-7” Rules, Explained Cautiously
You may come across references to a “70/30 rule” or a “3-5-7 rule” in discussions of garden and landscape design. These seem to function more as informal rules of thumb than as fixed, universally agreed-upon standards, and different sources describe them somewhat differently — so it’s worth treating the specific numbers as general guidance rather than strict formulas.
In broad terms, a “70/30” style split is sometimes used to describe balancing a larger share of structural or evergreen planting against a smaller share of seasonal color, or balancing softscape (plants) against hardscape (paths, patios, and other built features). A “3-5-7” rule is generally a reference to planting in odd-numbered groupings — three, five, or seven of a kind — since odd numbers of plants grouped together tend to look more natural and less obviously arranged than even numbers, which can read as more deliberately paired or mirrored. Both ideas are consistent with informal design’s general preference for natural-looking, slightly asymmetrical groupings over rigid, evenly divided layouts, but neither should be treated as a precise requirement.
What Does an Informal Garden Look Like? (Example)
A fairly typical informal garden might include a gravel or mown-grass path that curves rather than running in a straight line, deep mixed borders along the edges rather than a single defined bed shape, a loosely clipped (or entirely unclipped) flowering hedge as a boundary instead of a sheared evergreen wall, and a planting mix of perennials, ornamental grasses, and self-seeding annuals grouped in informal drifts rather than single rows. A cottage garden packed with overflowing, slightly overgrown-looking borders, or a more naturalistic planting built around native perennials and grasses, are both common real-world examples of the style.
Plant Choices That Suit Informal Gardens
Informal gardens generally draw from a wider plant palette than formal ones. Common choices include cottage-garden perennials like lavender and foxglove, ornamental grasses, native wildflowers, and shrubs that are allowed to keep their natural shape rather than being clipped. Plants are usually grouped in drifts of the same species rather than single specimens dotted individually through a bed, which helps the planting read as a cohesive mass rather than a scattered collection.
Informal Hedges and Boundaries
Where a formal garden typically relies on a tightly clipped hedge (yew, box, or privet, for example) for its boundaries, an informal garden more often uses a looser, flowering, or mixed-species hedge — hawthorn, dog rose, or a native mixed hedge are common choices. These tend to need less frequent trimming than a formal hedge, and they generally offer more flowers, berries, and wildlife value, though an entirely unmanaged hedge can eventually spread and need more significant cutting back every few years to stay in bounds. This site’s guide to hedging and screening plants covers flowering and mixed-species options that suit this looser, informal style alongside more traditional screening choices.
Tips for Starting or Transitioning to an Informal Garden
If you’re converting an existing formal or plain yard, it’s usually easier to start by softening bed edges and letting one or two hedges or shrubs grow out, rather than redoing the whole yard at once. Repeating a handful of plants throughout the space helps keep a loose, naturalistic planting from feeling disorganized. It can also help to keep at least one area — near an entry or a patio, for instance — a little tidier and more structured, since a fully informal look across an entire property can start to feel unkempt without some contrast. Farmhouse-style landscaping often leans on this same relaxed, informal planting approach alongside more rustic structural elements; this guide to farmhouse landscaping plans has more specific ideas if that’s the direction you’re headed.
FAQ
What is an informal garden? An informal garden is a style built around curved lines, asymmetrical balance, and plants left closer to their natural growth habit, rather than the strict symmetry and clipped shapes of a formal garden.
What is a formal garden called? A formal garden is sometimes referred to as a symmetrical or geometrical garden, reflecting its reliance on mirrored layouts and defined geometric shapes.
What’s an example of an informal garden? A cottage garden with overflowing, mixed borders and a curving path is a common example, as is a naturalistic planting built around native perennials, grasses, and a loosely managed flowering hedge.
Is an informal garden easier to maintain than a formal one? It’s generally more forgiving of being a little behind on upkeep, since it doesn’t rely on precise clipping and edging. It still needs regular attention, though — mainly to manage overall growth, self-seeding, and keep the look from tipping into genuine neglect.