Portfolio and Design Ideas
Cottage gardens are often quoted around the world as being some of the most spectacular gardens. A classic English garden design is much envied in hotter climates where they aren’t able to grow such lush plants. As ever, it’s normally a case of ‘the grass is always greener’ – the UK currently favours the contemporary, modern garden, utilising Mediterranean plants that create more structure. However, it seems that times are changing and we are going back to our roots, if you will excuse the pun. The trend is slowly changing and we are slowly heading back to textural and colourful cottage plants. Using such plants in a garden creates a certain ‘wow factor’ that is harder to achieve in a contemporary garden.
The Contemporary Garden can prove to be the perfect opportunity for designers to utilise their creative gift and to sculpt nature into an elegant, more structured form. The works contained in our portfolio below illustrate how a modern and beautiful garden can be created in any size space.
The contemporary garden opens up a world of architectural plants, from the weird and wonderful to the essential bamboos and grasses. In addition to adding form and structure to a modern planting scheme, these plants tend to be very low maintenance.
The gallery below shows you some of our work, we have picked a few projects for a case study futher down the page.
.jpg)
The Iris Pond
This Iris Pond was once a derelict pond which had been left to its own devices. We lined the pond with a butyl liner and then planted it up with Astilbe’s, Pittosporum’s and other such plants that complement a pond. Renovation to such a large pond requires careful thought and testing, for instance there was heavy leeching in the pond meaning the nitrogen content was far too high and any new pond would just stagnate with algae and pond weed. The lining of the pond stopped any leeching, and along with the addition of oxygenating plants, a healthy and maintainable pond was created.
The Contemporary Water Feature
A garden with just water is a magical place a place where you can sit and your mind wonders for hours and hours. This garden utilisers metal surround to create the retainer for the upper pool area, this might seem like a strange choice of materials.
The material whilst not being natural as it requires fabricating, provides a rich tone which is in stark contrast from the surrounding materials used. Using a darker material allows the water feature to shine through. A lighter colour surround would mean the water feature is In competition with the material used instead of being in the for front of the design
The Large Family Garden
This is one of the bigger projects we have taken on, being the size of around 2.5 football pitches. We took soil from the bottom of the garden to the top, allowing us to make a more level area along with 150 tons of soil. We introduced curves which nicely guide your eye around the garden taking you past the soft textural planting, the slate pathway and finally to the large pond. Introducing curves into such a garden provides a very elegant and visually pleasing space. Admittedly, we did breathe a sigh of relief when it was complete; the cubic capacity of soil we moved was near 750 tonnes, not to mention the amount of grass laid.
The Family Cottage Garden
We used circles and curves to provide a flow throughout this garden. The existing crazy paving was used to soften the design, and is actually the most important feature of the design as it takes you on a journey around the garden. The use of the existing York stone walling again softened the design, and connected the garden to the woodland behind. The planting scheme which was used, whilst not contributing massively to the overall look of the garden in its early growth stages, will provide a magnificent display of textures and colours; we specifically picked plants that were slow growers and not too invasive. When pathways run into shapes such as the patio, you can see the paving stops but the line of view isn’t stopped - the eye continues on its journey through the garden using the pathway as the vehicle of visual movement.
The Contemporary Family Garden
To raise any shape, whether it be a circle or square, is highly effective, especially when using a material such as reclaimed brick; the colour it can provide varies from a deep red to white. You can really sense the life these old bricks have had - it almost looks like the garden has been built around these aged bricks. The paving also complements the brick work, being in the same colour spectrum. The owner of this garden had seen the first garden on this page and really liked the design so they requested a similar style but asked us to modernise the design slightly. We achieved this by using calibrated stone which means that the stone is very regular, providing a more modern look. A lighter stone would have overpowered the design.
The Courtyard Garden
When gardens are this small, and the brief is there must be plenty of lawn we are left with one option, to create a garden using curves with one or two focal points. One of the focal points can be seen above, it is a circular seating area, it actually comes as a kit so it is very easy to install, one thing to take into consideration, is are you actually going to sit on it ? this might seem like a strange question.
If a table and chairs where placed on the paving you will no longer be able to see the shapes.
A small bench placed towards the back of the seating area would be a great addition, providing a place to sit whilst not hiding the shape.
The Family garden / part of the below design - The Rustic Contemporary Seating area
This is another picture of the Rustic contemporary seating area, you can see what a difference three weeks in a garden can make. Fitting in with the rustic theme we have used a reclaimed brick edging. A family garden is usually low maintenance, lot's of grass minimal planting and a featured seating area which takes centre stage in the garden.
Whilst this type of garden doesn't stretch our design capabilities it certainly gives us a sense of achievement transforming a unloved abandoned garden to a place of beauty which will provide many years of enjoyment for our Client and her family.
The Rustic Contemporary Seating Area
This was a challenging brief to create a garden utilizing both contemporary and rustic styles. Its is like making a Ferrari front and sticking a Aston Martin on the back.
Half way through the project I was concerned that the overall effect wouldn’t look right but I hope you agree that the difference between the rustic stone and the rendered walls is rather unique and interesting, along with the pleached Apple trees and grasses. I feel this garden excelled in it’s meeting of the brief, admittedly thou it may not be everyone’s cup of tea
The Victorian Walled Garden
To raise any shape, whether it be a circle or square, is highly effective, especially when using a material such as reclaimed brick; the colour it can provide varies from a deep red to white. You can really sense the life these old bricks have had - it almost looks like the garden has been built around these aged bricks. The paving also complements the brick work, being in the same colour spectrum. The owner of this garden had seen the first garden on this page and really liked the design so they requested a similar style but asked us to modernise the design slightly. We achieved this by using calibrated stone which means that the stone is very regular, providing a more modern look. A lighter stone would have overpowered the design.
The Stepped Paved Garden
Smaller gardens require a little more thought, such things like line continuations and Visual movement have to be taken into account.
To break it down a little and get away from design talk we are quite simply trying to take you on a visual journey using lines that stop your visual movement moving straight to the back of the garden , we need to make the eye move left and right, as can be seen from the picture above the eye stops at the end of the patio and moves left along the stepped paved area, this happens again at the secondary tier.
The Cascading Pools
This is another great example of how curves work in a garden the brief was to have an area of astro turf and make use of the two existing heights, we have achieved this with the use of a curved wall leading to a water feature.
Water features in any garden are a nice addition especially in smaller gardens, the sound of running water creates an atmosphere of tranquility and peace, there are many psychological reasons for introducing water into a garden, it gives you peace of mind that water is on hand.
The Contemporary Slate Garden
Welsh Slate is a wonderful material to use in any garden. It allows for the creation of walkways which aren’t made from hard stone which can be a huge benefit to some designs; the more paving you have in a garden, the more greenery which is required to counteract its severity. Slate is the perfect option for a minimalist garden as less planting is required to balance the plant to stone ratio. Slate also looks stunning when wet as the depth of the colour becomes more apparent.
The Curved Stepping Stone Walkway
As a designer it is all to easy to use complex shapes and lines in a garden. I remember my first design class ( 14 years ago, wow I feel old ) the first design we went through was the 2 circle design and still I find it hard to get away from, the gentleness of each curve the way it gives the garden more width, your eye travels quite a distance , if you where to measure the actual circumference of each circle you might be surprised in the total length. It is this length that makes the garden look and feel bigger. Which is why we have used a stepping stone walkway, using a solid pathway would of broke up the garden to much making the lawn feel like to pieces instead of one therefore breaking up the circumference of each circle.
The Japanese Pond
The key to this pond was to make it much larger than was actually required, providing us with plenty of room for planting; many of the plants around the pond have been planted within the pond itself.
The Acer is one of my personal favourite plants to use because of the striking textures they provide. These plants provide an even more striking display in the Autumn when the leaves turn a bright yellowy orange.
A pond like this is much easier to maintain than the large ponds, making it possible to have plenty of fish. As can be seen in the picture above, the pond is brimming with beautiful Koi carp. However, Koi are particularly tempting to herons that can empty your pond of fish in minutes. Some fine wire across the pond can stop this.
The Raised Walled Garden
The brief for this garden was particularly interesting; we were asked to concentrate on the central part of the garden to make the garden look bigger. As you can see we have made the lawn bigger and controlled visually where the eye starts moving and where it stops. Stepping stones, although subtle, are very important to the design as they lead the eye into the left hand side of the garden. Once your focus is in the top left hand side it moves across to the right hand side along the edgings. The area in the top left was thought by the client to be dead space; more often than not we make a feature of an area that isn’t considered useful, turning a part of a garden that was forgotten about into a great place to sit and relax.
London bridge - hard wood decking
The more bespoke and expensive a product the less design work is required, such as in the garden below, we where asked to implement a hard wood deck , such wood is always a joy to work with, the end design is one of simplicity and class.
Completed October 1st 2011
