Guy & Ida's Garden

A low-maintenance and calming urban garden – designed for busy professionals with minimal free time to spend on up-keep. It was important that the planting be largely self-sufficient as our clients spend large periods of time working abroad. We included a new Black Limestone patio, lowering the finished surface, to connect with the interior floor levels and create a dining/social area outside the kitchen. A smaller patio was added at the rear, to catch the afternoon sun. We included a new brick retaining wall and bullnose steps. With informal plant borders, we softened the new and old fencing with a naturalistic desert-style arrangement. Easy-care grasses and low shrubs were selected for their colouring and year-round interest. We planted evergreen flowering clematis to climb and cover the new slatted fencing, and renovated the wall at the back, utilising a variety of sensory climbers. The front garden we made over to match the rear. We also added a bin-store recess to hide the bins.

Brief

To remove decades of overgrowth and buried rubbish – making a new low-maintenance gravel garden, with patio areas for socialising outdoors.