Town Gardens

Creating gardens in an urban setting brings its own set of challenges. Attention has to be paid to planning restrictions on sight lines, on front garden paving and, of course, the impact on neighbouring properties.  It’s important to make sure access to the property is clear and unrestricted for both pedestrians and cars and that the main entrance and the boundaries  of the property are clearly delineated.

This new house had an attractive wall in the front garden that unfortunately reduced access too much of the actual plot. In addition the land fell away sharply along this side of the house. The solution was to keep most of the existing front wall, but remove a couple of sections and replace them with a new patio in grey sandstone.  The materials from the demolished wall sections were then re-used to build steps flanked by raised planting beds. On the other side of the wall we put in a curved path of Cotswold gravel edged with a mixed shrubbery. A new cherry laurel hedge on the boundary provides privacy for this new garden.

This north facing plot required a careful selection of plants. A mixture of shade tolerant evergreen shrubs for year-round colour  - including Pittosporum, Nandina and Elaeagnus -  was set in bark mulch for easy maintenance.  To meet the client’s requirement for fruit, the more favourable side of the wall was used to support a trained cherry, dwarf pears and apples and a range of soft fruit.