The plot in this project was a small, tired looking, sub-urban back garden. Its boundaries were a mish-mash of different fences with an unattractive and rickety wall along its back perimeter. The existing flooring consisted of reasonably good quality concrete paving, which the clients were happy to utilise in the redesign to reduce costs.
The clients requested a low maintenance space and specifically did not want lawn.
This is a fairly fluid design, featuring a series of interconnected circular areas of hard flooring to provide ample room for seating and relaxation while maximising the available planting space.
The existing fences and wall were removed and replaced along the entire boundary with new shiplap panels. A new shiplap gate was erected in the left hand corner of the space to allow access to an alley beyond.
The centre of the space features a gravel circle edged with red brick, to create an area large enough to accommodate a table and chairs for alfresco dining. This area also features a 12ft crab apple tree planted off centre within the gravel. 'Growing' from this main circle is a crescent of red half-bricks retaining a bed of loose cobbles.
Also adjoining the main circle is a smaller, brick-edged circle of crazy paving close to the house, constructed using the client's exiting paving and edged with red brick. This smaller circle has a crescent of loose cobbles adjoining it to the right. In the top right of the space we find a second circle of brick-edged crazy paving. This is joined to the main gravel circle by a railway sleeper bridge running over a crescent shaped butyl-lined pond. The pond itself is also brick edged and features two 'geyser'-style spouts, one on either side of the sleeper bridge.
The area in the bottom right hand corner of the garden has been set aside for a small storage unit, utilising the clients existing paving to create a cost-effective hard standing.
A wild-life oriented planting scheme provides the finishing touches to the space. Featuring hot colours, reds and yellows with splashes of purple, the flora was been chosen to provide year round interest and consists almost exclusively of perennials and evergreen shrubs and trees to keep maintenance to a minimum.
"Earth Designs have transformed a desolate concrete wasteland that we never used into a beautiful space in which we spend time almost every day. Katrina listened carefully to what we wanted and her first design was just perfect for us.
The build team worked hard to make sure every detail was to our satisfaction. If we move and need another garden transformation, we'll be using Earth Designs again."
