A 1930’s house with a very long narrow garden. There is a small deck adjacent to the house with an L-shape raised concrete terrace to the right, a long central lawn with beds to both sides and mature minimal planting to the edges with a mixture of cherry, pear and plum trees and a central shed to the rear boundary. The soil is loam with naturally high groundwater.

BRIEF: “Make the garden less boring”

A low maintenance design with an easy naturalistic feel. Would like to break the long garden into informal rooms to make it more manageable and to add interest and a sense of discovery. Extend the deck by the house to create a larger seating space to make the most of the evening sun. Create a reason to go to the end of the garden, possibly a seating area with a firepit. Screen the end of the garden from the neighbours so that it will feel comfortable to sit there.

Wants:

Multi-stem trees, silver birch trees, pleached trees. Contrast of arching grasses against solid outlines, the repetition of spheres and grasses, frothy Cotinus, calm greens and muted colours with pops of colour. Corten steel, pompom hakone grass, Echinops and Alliums. Would like to keep plenty of lawn, and to allow areas of long meadow grass to create billowing swathes of long grass. A simple planting scheme with plenty of repetition and year-round interest to suit the conditions and aspect of the garden.