Garden designer based in Warwickshire
Large rural garden
Location: Ettington
The Brief
The client was having an extension and front porch built on to their house and required new landscaping.
The existing stone terrace to the left of the house on the plan was to be retained and incorporated in the finished design plan.
They wanted a large dining and entertaining area that could be accessed from the new extension doors.
One of the key elements that they wanted to keep was the open view of the rest of the garden and surrounding rural landscape.
There was also an existing curving driveway that needed to stay in the new design.
The Design
The main challenge in this design was to deal with the changes in level with a pleasing yet practical and affordable solution. The most economic material to use in this instance was timber.
A dynamism was brought to the design by using a semi-circular timber terrace and ‘eye’ shaped pool with a drilled rock water feature. A single step led down to the main timber terrace with three generous timber steps down to the existing stone terrace.
An integral seating and retaining timber wall is punctuated with four black planters. The planters were planted up with small Photinia ‘Red Robin’ standard trees. The use of lighting is essential in this garden. Up lighters were positioned in the planters and recessed lights in the timber risers of the steps. They bring the garden to life at night. The lighting also indicates where the steps are in the dark.
A natural stone path leads from the timber terrace to the new porch. The porch is defined as the main entrance by adding repeated formal plant elements to the new borders. Topiary box balls are placed at regular intervals and two half standard holly trees are planted either side of the path. Six box balls were planted in tall black feature pots around the new extension and the side of the house. This helps to connect the two areas.