Richmond Place

After discussions with the clients, our suggestions for the design included:

Extending the paving area near the house, using materials that fit the chosen style, potentially incorporating ‘gaps’ within the edges of the paving for planting, softening, and naturalising the space. 

Retaining this patio height level using oak sleepers as a way to incorporate natural wood materials.

Creating new flower bed shapes between this and the pond and pathways, with new steps down. 

Retaining the existing small wildlife pond feature.

Removing the existing Pennant stone path, and creating a new curved pathway down the garden, stopping by a small ‘gin o’clock seating area en route.

Extending the hard landscaping area around the apple tree, potentially using a different material here such as decking.

A planting plan to be textural, overflowing, with interesting foliage and shapes. The contrast of evergreen structural plants mixed with deciduous grasses/perennials, and small amounts of colour.

Lighting throughout the design, highlighting key features and forms, for example, uplighting the apple tree.

The final design resulted in an interesting dynamic space, utilising a key design element to great effect. Soil banks, or ‘berms’ were created as a way to add structural and height interest, creating more movement in the design as you travel around the garden pathway, and as a great method for reducing groundwork costs. These are surveyed down the garden from the extended patio area, leading onto the existing central feature tree. 

The materials chosen reflected the goals of the clients for modern quality with a natural feel, using:

• Mandalay Buff Limestone and tumbled cobbles from Mandarin Stone
• Oak sleepers
• Corten steel edging
• Cotswold stone hoggin

Plants were chosen based on the initial proposal, featuring evergreen structures and spreading plants, alongside grasses of varying heights, and flowering colours of yellow and white. A fig tree was also chosen for the top patio space, its structure to one day reflect the lower apple tree.