Portfolio
Residential Garden, Witney.
This garden on a new estate was a blank canvas. The owners wanted to make the most of it’s West facing orientation but also ensure a spot for shade when required. They wanted winter colour and lots of pretty planting to encourage pollinators and birds to the garden.
We enlarged the patio, incorporating a central planting feature that can be seen from the house in the winter. I wrapped the planting around the patio and added some trees for screening, colour, height and to help attract birds.
The new deck and a pergola with it’s retractable roof gives flexibility for all weathers.
At the opposite end of the garden, we added more planting areas that wrap around a decked area which can be used for working or perhaps a spot of yoga!
Residential Garden, Witney.
This residential garden in Witney needed a garden makeover having had a kitchen extension. A new porcelain patio was laid and granite gravel added to add colour and texture.
Three ‘L’ shaped raised beds were made to break up the upper part of the garden. One wrapped around two sides of the outdoor dining table to make you feel enclosed by the planting. Another was wrapped around a bench, with some topiary trees to provide privacy. A third faced toward the house and was intended as somewhere where the planting could be changed frequently according to the season to provide colour in the garden from the house.
Outdoor lights were added to highlight features such as the palm tree and key structural plants in the garden as well as providing functional lighting to the workshop at the bottom of the garden.
Residential Garden, Woodstock.
This triangular shaped garden needed some love.
I gave it some lovely new curves, creating a serpentine path through the garden, adding a planting area of evergreen, shade- loving shrubs close to the shed and a large planting area of colourful perennials and climbers that can be enjoyed from either of the two patios close to the house.
A new lawn was also laid and a small Magnolia tree added to screen the shed from the view of the garden from the conservatory.
The planting needs to develop further but here are a couple of before and after photos.
Residential garden, Brize Meadow.
Chris moved into her lovely new build house but had a very bland square of grass for a garden which didn’t encourage her to spend any time in it, which she loves to do.
She wanted a space where she could sit outside, enjoy some colour, have some plants to encourage pollinators and birds but that was going to be be easy to maintain as she got older. She travels a lot and so didn’t want anything very fussy. The garden had come with a shed but she wanted it hidden so that it wasn’t a focal point.
We used the colour of her lovely pots as the basis for a yellow, white and blue Mediterranean planting palette, added trees for some height and screening and added lots of flourishes that she had brought with her from her previous home. The garden now encourages her to walk through it, to sit and enjoy it with some year round colour and easy to manage perennials.
Residential garden, Chalford.
This historic home was once a mill house when the Stroud valley was home to the textile industry. It has a natural spring at the top of the garden and terraces where the tenter racks would have once stood from where the textiles would have hung on tenter hooks. Mostly sloping it does however have a wonderful flat parterre at the back of the house.
I created a natural swimming pool which would be fed from the natural spring but have a boundary of aquatic plants to act as filters. The parterre became a more formal planted area with focal points and seating from which to admire the view, over the house and down into the valley.
I left a very light touch over the terraces, but created a vertical garden on the steeply sloped area around the parking area and an avenue of trees across the front of the house, where I extended the patio and created a lower, sheltered seating area under the existing trees.
Planting was more formal topiary balls on some of the slopes, but also tracts of lavender, carex buchanaii, hylotelephium telephium ‘purple emperor’ and large squares of prunus lisitanica hedging.
Residential garden, Freeland.
This lovely home in Freeland needed updating. The children had outgrown the outdoor play equipment and the owner wanted to add a Shepherds Hut for some guest accommodation which could also be in part, an Air BnB.
The garden then need zoning. A private garden for the family, an outdoor patio space for Shepherds hut guests and outdoor seating outside the converted garage space.
I used some low hedging to create boundaries around the parking area, the garage space and the family garden. Several evergreen trees to screen the Shepherds Hut and some decorative panels and trees to demark the family garden.
Some low raised beds of evergreen planting were added to provide colour around the Shepherds Hut and two new patios were added, one for Shepherds Hut guests and one for the family garden. In addition, a BBQ space was created, for shared use and a log store.
Residential garden, Blockley
This lovely home in Blockley needed a refresh.
The garden was overgrown, lacked colour and variety and the clients wanted a large social space that made the most of the afternoon sun at the bottom of the garden.
After a good amount of clearing, a lovely ‘S’ shaped seat was placed under the large tree with some shady loving plants beneath it. A new patio was laid with some gorgeous new furniture to compliment it and two new planters were created to add some colour to the view from the house.
A new pathway was laid down the garden, a new gate and hedging was added to zone the garden from the entry path and the planting area was dug through, new topsoil added and lots of lovely new perennials and bulbs were added to provide plenty of year round colour.
Residential garden, Stonesfield
This new build home in Stonesfield had a wonderful outlook overlooking a farm but was just a green lawn. The owner wanted lots of year round colour and texture, trees, wildflowers, a cutting garden and some focal points of interest to be seen from the house.
It needed some screening from a neighbours pool pump, so we installed a water feature, close to the patio that now hides the noise and a lovely new hedge hides the long dull fence.
A small patio amongst the planting and close to the cutting garden means that you can now sit amongst the lovely fragrance and colour of the roses, nepeta and lavender and watch the busy pollinators doing their thing.
There is a summer house in the garden, a BBQ area close to the large patio area and six new trees, three of which are hammelis for winter colour, an Amelanchier, a gorgeous maple bark prunus and a white Cornus.
There are also three areas of wildflowers to soften the side of the house which are in development.