Using my eye for visualising space and my horticultural knowledge I hope to help my clients by developing a new vision for their garden. Here are some examples –
Compact Urban Courtyard Garden
This design is for a small courtyard garden to the rear of a one bed city flat. The space is just nine square meters in size. The design needed to incorporate an existing raised veg planter and two large square terracotta pots plus it needed to house a wooden arbour seat.
The old tarmac is to be relaid with Indian sandstone paving and planting areas dug into the front of the garden where it flanks the rear wall of the flat. There will be a pretty bed of Echinacea, Geum, Iris, Aquiligea which should be visible below the kitchen window, and to the left low ground cover alpines and taller foxgloves. One square pot will be planted with a small twisted hazel tree to add height and interest infront of the boundry fence.
Climbing roses will be planted on either side of double storage seat Arbour which will give height, privacy and shade.
Fantasy show garden
A Long Garden
The garden design below was commisioned by a couple with a very long, 55 x 10 meter garden. The garden had become a little neglected and a little overgrown with ivy climbing up anything it could find and holly bushes taking over the borders. Though the lawn and shrubs had been regulaly trimmed, the garden lacked function and interest. The owners wanted a fresh eye cast over it with a mind to how it could be better utilised for entertaining and production of crops as well as providing more colour year round and a manageable amount of work to keep it looking tidy.
I split the garden into four main areas, the terrace by the house to be altered to better accomodate a large table, this followed by a long formal lawn with paths round. Shrubs and trees to have the crowns raised to widen the appearance of the garden and allow for underplanting.
Then follows a circular lawn which in tun leads to a sunken circular seating area created from a low brick wall and filled with gravel. This was the main problem area of the garden, as it is currently very overlooked. To sink lower the level of this area and add a corten metal screen to the overlooked side, will provide much needed privacy and a change in the landscape which invites the oppertunity to change the planting style from formal and green to a gravel muched area planted with colourful perennials.
From here a route either via the sunken gravel area or around the lawn to the left side you are led to a productive area containing raised beds, compost heap and a small seating patio. To the side of this, a gravel garden and pond area.
The last part of the garden is through a pergola which slightly screens a greenhouse to the left and shed to the right. The end of the garden is more wild and ends at a large stone boundry wall. There will be a central feature sculpture in this long grassed area, which will lead the eye down the garden to this woodland area.
A Blank Canvas, sloped garden
This large square sloped garden was a blank canvass but it was proving too blank for the owners who were stuck with how to deal with both the gradient and a large fir hedge down one side.
They clients were intending to do the work themselves once they had a design idea to work from. For this reason, they felt unable to terrace the full width of the lawn. Other considerations were that they still needed to be able to use their ride on mower, and to be able to enjoy the last of the evening sun which falls at the bottom left corner of the garden. This garden has an amazing view of the countryside from the house so any design needs to compliment both the angles of the house, and the rolling open fields beyond.
My approach was to use the rule of thirds to concentrate the design down the left side of the plot and to link the terrace to the bottom corner of the garden via a series of long shallow steps. This would tie the design in with the geometry of the house and to use the same large tiles that formed the terrace. The planting would link into the stepped path and lead down to a lower patio area with pergola. The eye would be drawn down the steps as they change at every other right angle, with clipped box or yew. This would also add an evergreen structure to the planting. I used a multi stem Silver birch to the left side of the steps to introduce a dappled shade, height and year round interest.
The dry shady area to the side of the fir hedge would be left as a strip of lawn that could still be mowed, meaning that the planting beds being set away from the hedge, would have less competition for water and nutrients.
My clients have done an amazing job at transforming their garden by adjusting my design to fit with a decreased budget and have bulked up beautiful perennial planting by adding many annuals grown from seed. To see this garden suddenly with so much colour was fantastic and the owners she be really proud of their hard work.
A Terraced House Garden.
This North West facing garden inhereted by my client was neglected, with weeds growing through gravel and a failed membrane, a pile of bricks in one corner, an overbearing fir tree and a mass of ivy pulling down a rotton fence. It needed help, and on a tight budget!
I hoped to retain and use as much of the materials all ready present in the garden, and build the design around the clients needs to replace all the fencing to maintain privacy whilst also maximising the light. We wanted to create a paved seating area, to re-use the stone to create a rockery or raised planting bed and to create a starting point for what can be further added to, to create a secluded little oasis.
My initial plans used gravel as a mulch and the reclaimed bricks for an informal path, but this then evolved to use the bricks for the path edge with gravel as the infill and bark mulch which could be easily planted into at a later date. A slatted screen fencing was custom built and we dug our so much stone that a raised bed could be built along the back wall. The garden was a sun trap through the morning up till mid afternoon, but then the area closet to the house overcast with heavy shaddow.
I used bamboo to add height and movement in the shaded areas, a single stem Amelanchier lamarckii tree half way down the garden to add height and seasonal interest. Nearer to the house are ferns, Heuchera, Pulmonaria and climbing hydrangia with grasses, Liriope muscari, Hardy geranium, Wallflowers, Persicaria and Clemetis to add colour and year round interest in the sunnier end of the garden.
Linking the home office to the home
This mid sized rear garden features flower beds between the patio and lawn, and down one side of the garden. A large summer house/home office had been built towards the end of teh garden, but didn’t sit comfortably in its surroundings.
To draw attention away from the large beech hedge, and to link the timber building to teh house I designed a series of timber arches over a path and flanked with planting beds, leading to the timber cabin, a second path car from the cabin down to the other end of the patio in front of the house.
Sheffield Garden Angel 