Current Design Projects

August onwards is always a busy time of year with people deciding that their current garden will not do and a new garden design is needed for Spring 2011. Currently I have the following projects on the drawing board which I am very excited about.

1.) Large family garden design in Barnes

One of my largest projects to date. An extremely large garden by London standards. The brief is for a traditional garden feel, nothing too contemporary, large dining space, generous lawn, new wave perennial planting, a separate childrens play area and "snug". This garden has been designed and is awaiting landscaping.

2.)  Terraced garden design in Wandsworth

An exciting garden design. Currently split on 3 levels this offers both challenges and many opportunities for a great town garden. The brief for this garden design is to make the most of the space available, create individual areas for differing uses, again nothing too contemporary but modern and sympathetic to the surroundings.

3.) Large family garden design in St Margarets - Twickenham

Again a large garden that will focus on entertaining, childrens play area and an area for relaxation.

Check back from time to time to see how these are progressing. 

Garden Design - Chiswick

Again I post will post more shots and the project brief shortly. This project was a small garden design in Chiswick.

 

Garden Design - Battersea

Its our busiest time of year and it's not easy when your webmaster, designer and tea maker to keep up to date with posting our garden design projects. This one of our recent small garden designs in Battersea. I will write up the project brief, the difficulties to overcome  and  a before shot soon.

 

Twickenham Garden Design

Until I get a chance to put this as a case study on the website (see Recent Projects), here's a bit more info and some pics of garden we just finished in Twickenham.

The client brief for this garden:

• try and cover the unattractive garage that backs onto the garden
• create seating area to enjoy the morning sun
• provide seating for 4 - 6 persons to enjoy the afternoon evening sun
• the style was to be modern but not contemporary.

The main hurdle to over come was the amount of concrete in this garden and as no access other than through a very narrow passage through the house was how to use it in the garden avoiding very expensive removal to skip (we could not even get a cement mixer in).

This was overcome in the design process by building a raised patio area, retaining timber sleepers and using the broken concrete as the foundations. Good for the environment and good for the budget. This raised patio is also the same height as the kitchen floor giving a real feeling of that extension of the house.

Originally in the design I was going to stain the new horizontal fencing but after one afternoon seeing the silver birch shadows on it I decided it should stay natural (see previous post) - one of the advantages of having the designer actually build the garden for you.

Planting is a mixture of late season perennial plants, scented climbers, grasses and a spring bed viewable from the house with ferns, geraniums a crab apple for height and spring bulbs.

 

The before shot:

 

Roaming shadows

I love using materials that create changing interest in the garden.  It's not only plants that transform with the changing weather and environment. This fence in a garden we are creating in Twickenham is a piece of evolving art.  As the light changes and the plants grown the shadows vary and move. 

Shady garden planting

Here a couple of pics taken on my mobile (forgot the camera!) from a recent planting project near Earls Court, London.  We replanted this small shady garden a couple of weeks ago.

The original planting was very tall and blocky - just not enough contrast to the tall walls and buildings surrounding the garden.  We played with different foliage textures, shapes and heights to help ground the garden better in it's environment.  We included some highly scented plants and plants for different times of the year.

The owner of the garden has really added interest into this small space with the sculptures, knick-knacks and statues.  They are also planning to give the white walls a coat of paint and include some mirrors to brighton the garden and reflect the light.

I'll try to get pics of more of our latest projects up here in the next couple of weeks but meantime please visit the recent projects here for more ideas.