We were commissioned to design and create a garden for one of our former clients who were moving into a much larger house in a fashionable residential suburb of London. The classic modern house, which had been built a few years before, had not been lived in for some time. It needed a large amount of work including building a whole new wing to house the family kitchen and living rooms. The 3000 square metre garden was rather stark and empty with some rather sad-looking cypress trees and an enormous water feature, not really ideal for a growing family. The property is surrounded by the large very mature trees and informal grassed areas which form part of a common so the borrowed landscape is important. Most of the trees are many centuries old and, although beautiful, cast a great deal of shade over the boundaries of the property. The other issue was that that there are some large ponds close to the boundary and as the garden was created, it became clear that the water level was extremely high making it very difficult to plant.
The brief was to create a striking garden with a large paved terrace close to the house and a large lawn and a good-sized children’s play area. The client had a double garage and annexe with a very large parking area in front which also needed to be redesigned. The garden needed to look good from a number of angles as the house sits well within the site. It was also agreed that a sculpture should be the focal point of the main lawn.
We decided to pave the main terrace in a pale buff sandstone with a large generous bed dividing it from the lawn and the rest of the garden. Across the main terrace there are two rows of umbrella-topped lime trees planted into the paving and these lime trees are continued across the path which divides the terrace from the modern parterre which separates the garden from the parking area to the front of the house, creating something of a theme throughout the garden.
The terrace is where the main dining area is located and there is also a built-in BBQ. From the modern parterre which is planted with beautiful cone-shaped multi-stemmed Amelanchier lamarckii, there is a living willow tunnel leading to the children’s play area which has a lovely raised playhouse.
In addition to the new limes, a number of other new trees were planted including a row of Pyrus calleryana ‘Chanticleer’, a Persian Ironwood and some lovely clear-stem Magnolias. The planting includes cloud planting of Buxus and Taxus interspersed with ground cover and grasses in the raised beds between the parking area and garden itself. There is a lavender fringed path and large beds of mixed shrub, perennial and grass planting.
As the main focal point from the house is an oak sculpture which was designed by Charlotte Rowe Garden design on a brief formulated by the client himself and made by a woodworker in the West of England.