Wandsworth garden – finished!

by caroline / Friday, 06 July 2012 / Published in Contemporary Planting, Gardens Designed, Raised Vegetable Beds, Uncategorized

Just planted

Here is a South London garden, based in Wandsworth, needing quite a bit of work doing! The house itself has been beautifully developed and the young couple, with small baby, have now decided it is time to sort out the garden, after the builders’ rubble. They are north-west facing which is not ideal as the sun really only comes into the right hand side of the garden at about 2 o’clock, but then they get quite alot of sun for the rest of the day. The garden is 13M by 6.5M which is not huge but enough space to create an interesting garden with different “rooms” and there is a wonderful open aspect at the back where playing fields abutt their land. However there is one ugly low building the other side of the back fence and a perfectly good looking tall church hall building to the top RHS of their garden; the former they would like masked by some high trellising. Their fencing is in good order. They want various things: an area for entertaining, with table and chairs – including a BBQ space, a “quiet” area, some raised vegetable beds, a garden shed, an area for compost and just enough lawn for their little girl to play on. However they definitely do not want this garden to become a children’s playground – there is ample room on Wandsworth Common for this which is 2 minutes away. The garden also needs paving, trellising and lighting and the owners have asked for “romantic, soft” planting with a sense of contemporary style to be in keeping with their new build kitchen etc.

This is the plan:

The garden has to be ready by 21st June so watch this space and I’ll tell you how we get on and show you photographs as we progress and you can see the planting plan in due course.

We’ve started to clear the garden!

The ground has been cleared and the paths are beginning to take shape. The paving at the back of the garden is being put down and we have painted the back fence black. Above this we’re going to put some horizontal lathes to hide the building behind and to give some definition to the end of the garden. You can see the newly built raised bed on the right… all beginning to come together.

The fencing is looking good and the trellis is in place to hide the shed. We are going to paint the trellis the same colour as the back horizontals and I’m looking forward to seeing how it looks once the shed is in place and the table and chairs are there. The planting is going to be quite dramatic and will reduce the impact of the trellising which is looking a little stark at the moment. The planting is happening on Thursday 14th June, so fingers crossed. The paving is looking a little fierce at the moment because it is so clean and new, but it will soften down with a little wear and tear. It is very good quality and will last for ever and I hate to fob clients off with cheap (sometimes initially more bright and effective – such as white porcelain tiles) paving and not many clients can afford York or limestone so this is an excellent hard landscaping product… but it does need to soften down a little. I am very pleased with the geometrical path shapes and the proportions work perfectly so let’s wait and see what the planting does!