THE STARTING POINT:

We were greeted with a garden covered in dirty crazy paving, a path leading to a little summer house, a lovely Beech hedge to the rear along with a Silver Birch tree provided privacy to the rear of the garden, as did a range of evergreens on the right hand side.

The boundary fences on either side were mismatched timber – though not in bad repair.  All in all it was not a space that drew you out.

THE TRANSFORMATION:

Starting with the level of the Silver Birch, we designed a series of interlocking square borders, at different heights, so we could keep the existing planting levels in the garden.  The sleeper edge of the borders have been painted a mat black to  contrast sharply with the pale cream sawn sandstone paving (chosen to match the flooring inside).

As the client wanted a large paved area in the garden, we ‘broke’ up the expanse of paving, by inserting  stripes across the garden, using the same light sandstone, but with a riven, slightly rough finish, to provide a contrasting texture to the smoothness of the sawn paving, parts of these stripes were planted the black grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus Nigrescens), bridging a softness to the paving.

The fences were painted a light putty colour, , which created unity, brought light into the garden and created a gentle foil to the planting in front.

The Planting in the garden is mainly evergreen, One border is planted with several Viburnum rhytidophyllum – which will be pruned and trained to create clear stems, topped with a dome of lovely textured evergreen foliage, underplanted with evergreen grasses and Berginia – it create restrained elegant scheme for this border.

The little summer house has been replaced by a lovely feature wall, clad with textured stone, Lights shining on the wall create lovely shadows on the wall.  The wall acts as a striking back drop for the  beautiful cloud pruned Ilex crenata.  The garden now has a beautiful focal point, positioned, to be appreciated from both out in the garden and from inside too.