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Raised beds are a good way to add form and structure to your garden. They can be constructed a variety of materials, from bricks or blocks to timber materials such as railway sleepers, wooden stakes and even old pallets. The beauty of raised beds is they do add an extra dimension to your garden and can also help to height to an otherwise two dimensional space. Once erected, depending on the material used, you can paint them, tile theme, cover them and if you use gabions (strong, wire-mesh boxes), you can even grow plants through them or fill them with just about any decorative material you like.

This is how to construct a simple raised bed from pallets:

Collect old wood shipping pallets. Many shops, builders merchants and other places of business get their products delivered on wooden pallets, which they may be willing to give away, especially if the pallets are damaged. Factories and your local refuse tip are other good places to pick up a free pallet or two. Hardwood pallets will look nicer and may last longer, but a softwood pallet will do just as well – a coat of timber preservative or wood stain will help keep them in good condition.

Carefully dismantle the pallet with a crowbar or claw hammer, taking care to avoid injury on the exposed nails. Some pallets will be very well made, so to avoid damaging the timber when prying the boards apart, you can saw the boards at either end to aid your demolition job.

Trim any damaged, splintering or rough ends of the boards with a saw.

Sort the wood into similar sized pieces. You will be using the boards to build squares or rectangles that are two board-widths tall. As an example, let’s say we are building a raised bed that is four feet long and two feet wide, so we will need four four-foot boards and four two-foot boards, plus additional pieces for to cut to size for reinforcements.

Lay two boards flat on the ground side by side and measure their combined width. Use a saw to cut a piece of wood that long. This will be the timber you use to fix and reinforce the panels. Nail the reinforcement board across the two boards flush with the edge at each end. Repeat this process to create enough panels to build your bed.

Arrange the sections to create a rectangle, making sure a reinforced end is on the inside of each corner

Nail the sections together, driving the nail through the reinforcement plank.

Line the inside of the walls of the bed with tough plastic sheeting to protect them from water and prevent soil from leaking through the joins.

Lay the raised bed on the ground and fill it with a soil and compost mix. Finally, plant it with garden plants of your choice.

Of course, a raised bed has many advantages beyond not having to do much prep work at the beginning of the season. The soil dries out quicker in spring, and it warms faster than regular garden beds. If you choose to build your raised beds out of bricks or blocks you may need to get the help of a professional. Remember you must dig good deep footings and fill them with concrete before you can start building.

Noel has sent us these photos asking for help with his small, urban London garden. The site is surrounded on all sides by neighbouring gardens, and the only access is a narrow path with the entrance butting against a corner.  He needs to keep the existing path and shed, and wants to create a retreat from the hassle of life.

As the fences are to stay, Earth Designs advise splashing out on a good collection of evergreen climbers to make the most of these vertical surfaces, as well as a lovely ornamental tree to create height and a sense of privacy. Although the area is too small for a lawn, a kidney-shaped seating area of paving or decking could be bisected by the path with a feature sculpture or water feature as a focal point.  The path could also be made more interesting by adding archways over it.  Again, this would help with privacy and creates more spaces for growing flowering climbers.

Our portfolio can be viewed by clicking here.  For postal garden design and garden design consultation vouchers click here.

As a designer I have my own inspirations, and I happen to love all things English - cricket on the village green, Pimms on a Summer’s day, and the smell of fresh cut grass – so it comes as no surpise that the humble beach hut catches my eye. As for launderettes… well just ask Matt. I have a thing about their timeless, urban, bland interiors.

In the nineteenth century no trip to the seaside was complete without a dip in the sea from a bathing machine. These vehicles looked like beach huts on wheels and they could be hired for half hour periods. Patrons would get in at the top of the beach, change out of their normal clothes as a horse pulled them towards the seas, then step directly into the water from the front of the machine. For more than 150 years this was how most bathers experienced the sea. Queen Victoria even had her own personal bathing machine built at Osbourne on the Isle of Wight.

But bathing machines were not invented by the Victorians. By the time Victoria came to the throne in 1837, bathing machines had already become an established feature of any would-be seaside resort. A whole century earlier, mobile changing rooms were in use at Scarborough, the world’s first seaside resort located on the east Yorkshire coast. These simple vehicles, designed for the use of the wealthy but infirm, were evidence of a radical new fascination with the sea. Before this, no one but fishermen and smugglers used the beach. Then doctors began to prescribe the cold sea bath as the latest ‘cure-all’ remedy, the sick went to the coast to be treated and took their families with them. These people needed accommodation and entertainments so the modern concept of the seaside was born.

Anybody who is anybody now owns a beach hut and with huts fetching over £40,00 in more desirable areas, they have become a modern style statement. There is even a web-site for buying a beach hut if you fancy one: http://www.beach-huts.com/

The Festival of Bathing Beauties caught my eye last year as a winning combination of British eccentricism, inspired design and masterly craftmanship. Here’s what the organisers of this celebration of a quintessentially English institution have to say about it:

The fourth annual Festival of Bathing Beauties will take place from 17– 19 Sept 2010 between Mablethorpe and Sutton-On-Sea, Lincolnshire coast, UK.

A sixteen kilometre stretch of blue-flag award-winning beaches on the Lincolnshire coast is the setting for the third Festival of Bathing Beauties: The UK’s only Beach Hut Festival. It’s fun and free for all the family. Along the promenade, hundreds of public and privately owned beach huts will be on special displayfrom 17 – 19 Sept 2010; many featuring a range of spectacular, bizarre, incredible and beautiful events and performances inside. Up to 50 ‘Beautiful Beach Hut’ competition entries – huts specially decorated inside and out by their proud owners hoping to win one of several cash prizes – will also be on public display. There are bold new Bathing Beauties and planned events on the beach and seafront including music, food, storytelling, puppet shows and temporary art installations plus fireworks and firesculptures in the evening. Over 10,000 new visitors attended the Festival of Bathing Beauties® in September 2007, it was the busiest Mablethorpe had been in 30 years and the local paper headline reported ‘Hut Festival Wows World’ with many international visitors coming to the Lincolnshire coast for the first time.

Last year saw some truly amazing creations (see below) and I am sure this year will make just as much of a splash…

Mablethorpe Camera Obscura Designed by Willett and Patteson, Lewes, UK. An amazing new Bathing Beauty based on the popular Victorian attraction; a darkened chamber with a moveable lens and mirror through which live images of the coast are projected onto a viewing surface.  Ideal for photographic enthusiasts, or just the plain curious.  An octagonal painted timber structure located on Mablethorpe Central Promenade, (South side).

Come Up and See Me Designed by Michael Trainor, Manchester, UK. Inspired by a gin and tonic, perfect for cocktail sipping at sunset and situated on Mablethorpe Central Promenade, (South side). This Bathing Beauty original is made of vitrified tiles, mirror, laminated ply-wood and galvanised steel.

Eyes Wide sHut Designed by Feix and Merlin, London, UK. A glamorous ‘picture frame’ hut designed to frame the landscape when open and give privacy to occupants when closed by way of a special one-way viewing mirror. An original Bathing Beauty made from GRP, timber and polycarbonate and located at 37 Mablethorpe South Promenade.

Halcyon Hut Designed by Atelier NU, Montreal, Canada. Paying homage to the traditional beach hut form, this original Bathing Beauty is expertly crafted from western red cedar and uses acrylic panels to allow shafts of light to travel through the walls and roof.  Light dances through the interior during the day and when night falls, light from inside travels out creating an abstract glowing beacon.  Located at 68 Sutton South Promenade, Sutton on Sea.

Jabba Designed by i-am associates, London, UK. The world’s first contemporary cave, located in an idyllic spot in the Sand Dunes by the Sea View Car Park at North Mablethorpe.  This original Bathing Beauty is perfect for families but has limited access due to unique location in the dunes on the beach.  It is made from laminated ply-wood, paint and acrylic.

Another busy week for Earth Designs…

The enquiries keep flooding in… and the garden designs keep flowing out!

Matt has started our new site in Holloway – here are the before shots: Watch this space for the progress of the space as it develops.

It’s Sally’s last week before she leaves us to have her baby, and so we welcome Helen as her replacement. Helen joins us after training at the English Gardening School. She will step into Sally’s shoes – which aren’t easy ones to fill – and head up the gift voucher side of Earth Designs as well as helping to run the company. We will do a full intro next week.

Took on another 3 jobs: Ele and Rich in Clapham, Jacqui and James from Battersea and Sam and Neil in Oxford.

Went to see another couple of clients, one in Walthamstow and one in Buckhurst Hill, and am awaiting confirmation that they would like to proceed with design packages.

Met with Simone and David to discuss the budget of the Manor House. We are telling the story if this large project in stages on the blog; please read the full story about the project in our archives.

Still trying to finish the site in Greenwich – after waiting over 6 months for the goods to arrive from Morocco sadly the supplier has died and the company has ceased trading. Matt has been firmly on the case scouting out a new supplier, but the ‘M’ word makes us wince at the moment!

A client who contacted us last year and then put his project on hold for personal reasons has now come back to us with gusto. We are compiling a planting scheme for him.

Matt contracted a re-turfing job for an ex- One Day Attack client. They have opted for artificial lawn because the ground is permanently boggy in their garden and real turf struggles to survive.

Matt and I visited the National Herb Centre this weekend and splashed out on a few plants of our own. I replaced some of the herbs I had lost due to the harsh winter and Matt treated me to a beautiful small Magnolia ‘Susan’,  as I adore Magnolias and due to lack of space can’t have a big one. He then came home and dutifully planted it – which when you work in gardens for a living is a real labour of love x. Our garden is really starting to flourish after a late start…

Michael has sent us these photos of his front garden, which desperately needs some attention and styling.  He wants to get away from the ‘domination of the car’, although parking still needs to be accommodated in the driveway to the garage.  Although not an experienced gardener, the main requirement is for greenery and ‘freshness’ to the front of the house.

Earth Designs suggests that by partitioning the driveway and keeping the cars to one side, the garden can be reclaimed for plants and people. By accentuating the currently underused pedestrian gate and creating a stylish pathway leading to the house, people will be more likely to use this entrance rather than walk across the driveway. A lawn will ease the need for intensive gardening work (although it will need mowing!) while leaving enough space for a range of attractive evergreens and herbaceous flowers.

If you would like the Earth Designs treatment, please call us on 0208 521 9040 to speak to one of our garden designers in London.

This was a London garden design we pulled together for a house in Greenwich a couple of years ago…

 The entrance to the main garden will be framed by two rendered block raised beds constructed at right angles to each other and painted to a colour of the client’s choice. These beds will each feature a decorative screen constructed from a four inch oak frame with coloured Perspex inlay (client to choose colour), while an imposing, chunky oak timber arch constructed between the two beds will create an impressive entrance to the space. 

The arch will lead directly to a black granite sett pathway which doglegs around a central lawn. To the left, a long and impressive decorative screen, comprising oak frames with alternating Perspex and rusted iron mesh inlays, will separate the main garden from the children’s area. The children’s area itself will consist of a large area of luxury artificial lawn and a bespoke blackboard installed on the left hand wall.

The pathway will continue around the garden to an oak decking futon-style feature seat with armrests and a high 2m back. This feature seat will offer ample space for 2 –3 people to relax and socialise and will benefit from an air dried oak pergola to provide shade on a sunny day. Optional weatherproof cushions in a colour of the clients choice would provide added comfort to this laid back area.

From the pergola/feature seat, the path will continue down the right hand side of the space to join the the main seating area. This will consist of a square section of oak decking, laid in a diagonal pattern and edged with black limestone setts. A simple yet stunning oak cube structure, designed to reflect the shape of the glass cube extension to the house, will enclose this deck and create an imposing focal point to the space. 

This structure will offer opportunity to add a shade sail, fabric hangings and other decorative panels, to add  colour, privacy and shelter under which to dine. 

Diagonally to the right of the main deck area, in the corner nearest the garage, a smaller section of decking will house a bespoke bar. Constructed from rendered blocks (painted a colour of the client’s choice) with a decked counter top, this bar will be complemented by three tall oak bar stools. The back of the bar will be left open to allow the client to install a sink and outdoor fridge if desired. A backlit Perspex panel will adorn the wall behind the bar to add a splash of colour, while the client could install various bar ephemera along the garage wall at a later date if desired. The Perspex panel could be printed with an optional pattern or image of the clients choice. The front edge of the lawn will offer the ideal spot to house a sculpture to be added at a later date. 

Planting in the space will be bold with a predominately green and white scheme. Four large cordyline australis will feature in zinc planters, while climbers will adorn the mesh screens and boundary walls. Hardy evergreen coupled with showy herbaceous perennials are sure to guarantee year round interest.

After our return from a very lovely time in Turkey we have hit the ground running…

• Had an email from Emily – “I’m editing a new homes magazine that’s going to be distributed monthly with the Saturday Guardian from this summer. I wanted to run a feature about architectural gardens – ones that really are ‘outdoor rooms’ – and Earth Designs seem to be the pros! Would you be happy to speak to me about what your clients are asking for; how to create a garden that functions as an extra room without it seeming too architectural; and how to marry up your planting with things like benches and outdoor shelving so that they complement each other.”
• Now that the sun is finally shining, there has been a huge surge in calls for design consultations, on the back of which we have taken on several new clients: Dom and Katie-Alice from Kennington, Gill from Surrey and Jenny in Enfield.
• We are this month’s issue of Living etc – see below for article.
• Have been recruiting new staff to help us with the surge in work and potential work.
•  Matt went to do a garden spring-clean for a client whose garden we designed and built in January 2009. He arrived home to this lovely email: “Paul had no idea you’d be coming and got in the house first to exclaim – ‘something’s happened to the garden!’ I don’t know what he thought. In any event, thank you for all your hard work, and for giving us back the beautiful garden we were left by some very good designers and landscapers. I don’t know where it went to but it’s back.”
• We have been contacted by a client who commissioned a design last year and then had to postpone the project for personal reasons. He is now ready to proceed and its full steam ahead on his proposed design scheme and planting plan. Watch this space!