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After deliberating for nearly ten years on how to update our rather dark and gloomy garden, it was wonderful to meet Nick and Douglas. They calmly and effortlessly guided us through the whole process to help us achieve the garden of our dreams.
We enjoyed each meeting with Nick and Douglas and felt confident in their highly professional and creative approach to everything. Their final design for our garden was brilliant in that it contained all our shared ideas plus that extra inspired vision.
The physical processes of landscaping, laying the irrigation system, adding new lighting systems and planting all happened quickly and amazingly stress-free. All the family agree the garden is now the best room in the house. We highly recommend Nick and Douglas to all." - David and Julie W5
When we first presented the outline plans to the clients for this garden, they were surprised that they would be able to have different areas within it that would cater for the needs of all the family. The garden has a generous terrace with wide paths leading off to the left and right, that join the lawn which runs the entire width of the garden.
The lawn is a great place to sit and relax
Beyond the lawn is a secluded gravelled area with sofas, a fire bowl and a large storage unit. Painted dark grey, the unit blends easily into the background and is the perfect backdrop to the planting in the bed that disguises it when viewed from the house.
The sofas are positioned around the fire bowl, which the family love to sit around after dinner.
The design and choice of planting in this garden took into account its north westerly aspect. The paving chosen was lighter in tone, which helps to ‘lift’ a garden, even on the dullest winter’s day.
The large lighter tone of the paving reflects the light and shows off the full planting of the left and right beds on the terrace. Large terracotta urns with Phoenix palms are at the centre of the left and right hand terrace beds, providing year round structure and interest.
The right hand terrace bed contains an existing large silver birch tree that we incorporated into the planting design. All the plants in these beds tolerate the shady conditions and the contrasting foliage looks stunning.
From a planting perspective, being north-west facing, the garden gets little direct sunlight in the winter months. However, in the summer the central part of the garden has sunshine for a good part of the day. We took full advantage of this by placing a large bed in the centre of the terrace.
The central terrace bed contains planting that ensures there is colour and structure for 12 months of the year.
The central bed has a majestic Acer at its centre with yew topiary balls grouped at each send of it. These provide evergreen structure in the winter. The bed has tulips in Spring, Alliums in early summer and a number of long flowering summer perennials including orange Helenium, pink Monarda and the lacy flower heads of the bronze Fennel.
The large storage unit was painted dark grey, forming the perfect backdrop for the green foliage and stunning white Hydrangeas.
Here's the before and after:
Photos © Paul Debois
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