See how our gardens grow...

3 September 2009

It is always interesting and rewarding for us to re-visit gardens in the years after we designed and constructed them. Very often we continue to maintain many of the gardens that we design, so this year we thought we'd start taking pictures to show how gardens evolve over time.

You can see from this case study the ‘before' and ‘after' photos are quite spectacular. This house was built about 3 years ago, and the garden at that stage consisted of 1 acre of sloping grass. Hardly inspiring. Our lead designer, Dan Lobb, set to work and designed a stunning split level garden, solving the problem of the sloping lawn by introducing two retaining walls to create distinct areas in the garden. The garden was designed to sit naturally with the arts and crafts style house. 

As for planting style, the clients were keen to encourage wildlife, so we planted a large wildflower meadow area and chose plants for the more formal planted area not only based on their style and structure, but also on their ability to attract wildlife. Nectar-rich flowers provide a good source for pollinating insects and were alive with butterflies and bees when we visited recently during the new garden's second summer. 

Water is a central theme in the garden, with interconnected, multi-level ponds, pools and rills creating focal points both within the garden and from key seating areas in the house, as well as movement, gentle noise and beautifully reflective surfaces. Dry stone walls, a gravel garden and a formal lawn complete the look.

We visit this garden regularly to keep it at its beautiful best with our garden maintenance services, including weeding, lawn cutting, hedge trimming and tree surgery services. The clients are delighted with the way the garden is developing year after year.