Country Cottage Garden
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Initially my input was requested principally for helping with the planting of the new garden but also to look over the client’s plans for reinstating the garden, largely as it had been before the work.
I realised there was an opportunity to rework the layout of the garden to better meet the design wishes of the client. The client liked cottage style perennial planting in an informal setting but the original garden had been semi-formal with a central border which broke up the garden forcing the rest of the space to use straight paths and small isolated borders. The client had already decided to move the driveway entrance so that car could be parked out of sight but the space released was not going to be integrated into the garden and the new driveway would be tight for its intended use. Additionally there were the unsightly oil tank and an unusable sunken area. The challenge was to find a way to create a cohesive garden making good use of the available space. My design solution was to sink the oil tank below ground, using the resulting soil to fill in a significant section of the sunken area to create a more generous parking area. The divisive central border was removed and new curving borders to create a single flowing garden and bring the focus from the boundaries into the garden. Privacy from the road is provided by a pleached beech hedge and new trees in keeping with the area.
The garden had become a building site during the refurbishment of the cottage with a prominent oil tank and driveway located in the most useful and viewed part of the garden. Also a change in levels that rendered a section of the garden unusable. The before and after pictures below show how the garden has been transformed.
Before - A builders yard
After - A Garden