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Flowing premium garden design and build
This garden has the strange honour of being my Pandemic ProjectTM – about two thirds of the way through saw the announcement of Lockdown 1.0 and as a result I shut down work on site whilst we took stock. After a few weeks of being tired from looking after my lovely toddler rather than designing and building gardens, work resumed and the project came together, albeit after an altogether unprecedented interval…
This was a pretty substantial build and a much longed-for garden for my lovely clients. Having renovated their beautiful home over about 15 years it was finally the turn of the outdoor space. As a result of this wait, we made sure to take time in the design phase to ensure they got everything they wanted and that they were getting the maximum value for their investment.
Being a large garden it was important to create areas that felt like their own space but also that flowed together as a cohesive whole. Upon stepping out of the kitchen door you enter the Weinor glasshouse with porcelain flooring, which extends beyond the glass to give a seamless transition to the outdoors. In summer the glass can push all the way back leaving an 8 metre wide threshold and bringing the garden ever closer to the home.
From here the hard landscaping continues by way of either a gravel path adjacent to the house or a standout Millboard boardwalk that articulates its way over the rootzone of the large wild cherry tree and then steps down onto a great size Millboard deck for a further entertainment or relaxing space.
Laying out materials to get a feel for them and make sure the clients were happy before committing – all part of the detailed planning process
This then sits you next to the rose arch walk, a series of nine green oak archways running the bottom width of the garden, a rose on each post and sinewy brick edging winding its way between them. The gravel path has a feature chevron barrow track inset with encaustic tile style slabs. Herringbone brickwork sections make a small courtyard at one end of the walk before a corten screen marks the threshold to the driveway and at the other end of the arch walk sits a space waiting for the next development due in 2022 – wait and see…
The soft landscaping is abundant, cottagey without being too bustly with touches of formality. A large proportion of the flowering perennials are white and there is also a profusion of silver and grey foliage. The most formal element is the addition of four fantastic yew pyramids and short sections of instant yew hedging radiating from a statement Foras water fountain, placed close enough to both glasshouse and Millboard deck to be seen and heard from both. Another fountain, this time stacked sandstone, sits on a brick plinth at the centre of the herringbone brick courtyard adjacent to the double-height oak window to the living room and master bedroom.
Please click the images below to see some snapshots from the garden and never hesitate to get in touch should you wish to discuss anything from this project, or indeed your own garden dreams
The build for this project was relatively complex and lengthy and involved many different skillsets, a fair bit of forward planning and liaising with other trades, in particular gas engineers (for the gas feed under the glasshouse into the kitchen) and electricians (for the new power feed down to the bottom corner of the garden for the next phase of development)
Please click through the photo gallery below for more detail on the construction phase of this project
The site is beautifully nestled in the crook of the house and underneath, mostly, the canopy of the enormous wild cherry
The garden was pretty but had served its time
Getting the path base established
A nice space, but the clients had long dreamed of an update
Marking out and starting to strip the old garden
Lots of material, specified and installed to at least recommended standards
Foundation dig and ensuring correctly laid gas line for the feed into the kitchen from a stand alone gas tank in the garden
Getting the shuttering sorted for the foundations as specified by Weinor for the glasshouse
Bracing the shuttering for the foundation pour
Getting the concrete tamped and ready
The base all but sorted for the start of patio laying
Marking out the beautiful porcelain from Global Stone
Working by lamplight again but it got the patio laid
Ensuring services are taken into account
Optimistically waiting for it to warm enough to continue laying slabs…
Bit of a mid-way clean up
Grouting…again!
Grouting the porcelain inside the glasshouse
The glasshouse frame went up over Christmas
One advantage of working into the dark: beautiful skies
Carving out the layout
Starting to get soft landscaping areas prepped
The advantage of working over Christmas…
We cut a feature brickwork labyrinth as a fun surprise in the lawn
The labyrinth was just avoided when adding a trench for a new electric feed to the corner of the garden
Trying to keep a tidy site with tents and boards to reduce mud and mess
Marking out for clarity
Keeping things going in winter with worklights and tents
Ensuring all the timber got a coat of bituminous paint before getting anywhere close to the ground
Never quite enough clamps, however many I seem to have in the van. We made jigs to speed up the process of installing the posts for the decking frame to mount to
Lots of framing, lots of figuring out
More jigs, more clamps
Nice neat framing speeds up the install of the decking itself
The boardwalk cuts nicely across the large area of soft landscaping close to the house
Finishing the deck section which was designed to minimise the waste from such a premium product
I was really pleased with this herringbone feature on the corner of the boardwalk
Keeping a tidy site
The right machine, or tool, makes any job easier
Cutting the tongues on the cross beams for the green oak arches
I spent a long time making sure these arches were perfectly in line – they will look great once swamped with roses
The herringbone courtyard coming along
There were quite a few access chambers in this garden but we incorporated them as neatly as possible into the hard and soft landscaping
Encaustic tile style inlays to the chevron barrow track are a nice little detail to discover when walking around the garden
This was a dead space which we converted to useable utility space, hidden from view of the house or rest of the garden
Spoils of waste – tens of tonnes removed from this job
Sam from Anglian Grab making things go like clockwork yet again
The driveway saw the installation of gravel grids to provide a completely free draining but stabilised surface
The gravel spread on the driveway – this is at the rear of the property and will serve as a convenient utility space
We even found time to complete a bit of fencing and install combination lock gates to increase security
Finally adding the formal fountain feature
Getting the beautiful yew planted
More plants! You know the job is coming to an end when the van looks like this
Van full of plants – my favourite
Digging the reservoir for the fountain feature
Don’t forget, if you’re interested in starting your own garden project please feel free to get in touch for a chat about your ideas and to discuss how we can work together