Tag Archives: Garden design

Now is the time to Design your Garden.

 A modern garden in Brighton.

A modern garden in Brighton.

In the depths of winter, the bare bones of a garden can be seen, those problem areas come a little sharper into focus. The unsightly shed and compost bins, the stacks of plastic pots, that could be better screened. The path that is not quite wide enough now the shrubby has grown and you are walking with one foot on the lawn turning it into a muddy stripe in the winter. The terrace which is not quite in the right place for the evening sun. The planting boarder that has got too wide and difficult to manage and has spread outwards leaving a bare middle with over crowed edges.

The boundary planting which has got to large and has gone from a tall hedge to over powering a large section of the garden. To the line of leggy shrubs and large clumps of herbaceous plants that desperately need dividing to flower well. All gardens however mature they are can need a little redesign and new thinking and this is great time of year to do it.

Landscaping a family garden

Landscaping a family garden

What to consider when thinking about redesigning your garden? The first thing is to get everyone involved who uses the garden, how ever briefly. Get them to write a list of the 3 most important things they would like from a new garden. Compare notes decided as a family what your most important needs are.

 Landscaping has just been completed on this town garden in Horsham

Landscaping has just been completed on this town garden in Horsham

Next, Budget- Costs of landscaping- After care. Now you have all had your wild dreams of grass tennis courts, 100m long herbaceous boarders, ponds and jettys and Jacuzzis, now is the time to think realisticly. First what is your budget? Will it be enough to reasonably build your dream garden? Or is there a middle ground of perhaps having the garden built in stages over a period of time helping spread the costs ( some of my clients go for this option) or could you do some of the work yourselves? I am not suggesting you should become a brick layer every weekend or dig your swimming pool with 3 members of the family on spades for six months. But how about staining your own trellis/ pergola. Doing some of the clearance yourself or carrying out your own planting.

 Small court yard garden. Lindfield

Small court yard garden. Lindfield

Also does everything in the existing garden have to go? This rarely happens there are often existing trees and shrubs that stay or are pruned or crown lifted if they are getting a bit large. Those over crowded herbaceous plants some may be worth dividing and lifting and transplanting to new sites in the garden. Also your existing paving materials may be able to be lifted and relaid and added to. There may be other items and materials in the garden that can be used in the new design.

Lewes Maritime Garden

Lewes Maritime Garden

Aftercare, it is important to be realistic about how much time you have per month to look after your new garden, Sissinghurst is of course lovely and what most people think of when they think of a typical English country garden, but it is very high maintenance and takes a fleet of full time gardeners to keep it looking as it does. So how much time beyond moving the lawn once a week from April to September have you got? Perhaps the higher maintenance plants on your wish list have to go, and instead of the long herbaceous boarders, a good mixed planting of shrub and herbaceous and ground cover and mulch is the answer. With few boarders. Do you need to consider some help in the garden? From a hedge and tree expert who could come and cut the boundary hedges and screening trees. To to more specialist jobs that you feel less able to cope with, pruning top fruit and roes for example. Or more regular help, perhaps the less skilled grass cutting you get a lawn care firm to carry out and you concentrate on the planting areas. Or perhaps you just want to sit in your garden and let a weekly trained horticulturalist take the strain. What ever you decide, it is important to work out the level of care needed and how it is going to be carried out, at the design phase. So the garden that is designed for you not only suits your needs but suits the amount of maintenance it is going to get.

Walled Garden Steyning

Walled Garden Steyning

So start the possess, walk round your garden and look critically at it, work out the areas that do not really work and you would like to change. Think of the areas in the garden that were best to sit in, when you were enjoying the garden in the summer, mark them. Have the family meeting, work out who is mowing and who is hedge cutting and who gets first dibs on the hammock on a summer afternoon. Raid the piggy bank, and decide how much the budget is and who has what skills and what time to help with the landscaping. Now give me a ring so we can talk about your garden project I would be delighted to help create your new garden! Tel: 01273 470753, go on give Emily a ring!

A wildlife pond nr. Lewes

A wildlife pond nr. Lewes

No garden is to big or to small, and lots of clients just have areas of their existing gardens re-designed.

A Chic Modern Court Yard.

A Chic Modern Court Yard.

A court yard garden By Arcadia Garden Design and their Landscapers.

Brief: To create a space that can be enjoyed all year round as it is at the heart of family life being next to the kitchen and dinning room, with peaks of plant interest through all the seasons. A space to be both seen from the house but to ‘spill out into’ and enjoyed.

Aspect of the court yard garden designed and landscaped by Arcadia garden Design in Hove, E. Sussex

Aspect: This wedge shaped, semi-shade courtyard can be seen through glass doors on two sides from both the kitchen and breakfast room, the longest boundary is dominated by the roof line of the next door neighbours. The courtyard had an existing falling down trellis and fence with an over powering Clematis montana on it. With a set of raised beds planted with box. The existing decking was rotting.

Landscaping a courtyard garden in Withdean Brighton

Design solution: The clients owned a set of bright orange garden chairs, so orange was the ascent colour. This courtyard had to look stunning all the year round, So a strong use of evergreen planting with good foliage textures. With colour splashes of orange provided by herbaceous planting and bulbs, through out the seasons. The existing decking area was reduced to give more planting room, but still allowing space for outside dinning for all the family.

A new sand stone terrace in Withdean Brighton By Arcadia Garden Design

Landscaping: The unruly clematis was to go and a new fence with green oak slatted trellis was used to give a harmonious boundary which acted a a foil for the new planting. The decking was removed and an extra step put in to bring the finish level below the DPC. The courtyard was paved in a sawn cream buff sandstone from turkey with crisp narrow joints that were grouted. The existing render planters and box were to stay they were painted with a dusky slate blue to act as a strong contrast to the new paving and to act as a dramatic back drop for the new containers.

Hard core foundations and steps to be below DPC at a new patio in Brighton by Arcadia Garden Design.

Planting: The trellis was planted with Trachelosperum on the sunniest side for it’s strong scent and Actindia for it’s wonderful foliage, a multi-stemed Amelanchier adds height and interest to the middle of the courtyard. A small tree was chosen, Malus x robusta ‘Red Sential’ to add a focal point at all times of year, with it’s spring blossom, autumn tints and small glossy red fruits which will last through out the winter. Nandina domestic’ Fire Power’ gives a big red autumnal winter punch, and the foliage of Heuchera ‘Can-Can’, Bergenia rotblum and Polystichum setiferum add colour and texture to the planting. Hellabores give mid winter flower and Tulipa ‘Ballerina’ and Fritillaria imperialis ‘April Flame’ add blasts of orange bulb colour late spring. Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora ‘Emily Mckenzie’ gives mid to late summer orange splashes.

Blues and oranges in a chic modern courtyard garden in Brighton

Finishing touches: 5 tall elegant brilliant orange containers with orange red ripples are planted with Phormium cookianum ‘Flamingo’ to give a dramatic visual impact against the new slate blue walls. A line of outside fairy lights is going to play along the trellis through the climbers it give points of light though the long winter evenings.

brillent oranges and elegant landscaping with a sawn stone terrace Brighton