Caroline Garland, leading garden designer in South London, is currently working on a perfect project.  This is a level and south facing garden (12m x 8m) with nothing in place and everything to do. The house is undergoing a complete overhaul, including a back extension which leads directly out onto the garden through bi-fold doors – the width of the house.  The client wants a garden which will be relatively easy to keep with clean well balanced contemporary lines and there is to be space for entertaining young (teenagers) and adults with seating areas, some shade, a water feature, a table tennis table, a shed and lots of pretty planting with some formality, however no grass.  Instead there will be areas of gravel, soft grey slate and decking. The garden has been divided up into three rooms (each of 4m length) and space has been given for outside sofas in rattan by a firepit for the young, there is a rill with a small blade fountain, there is a secluded “Italian garden” with a York stone bench and pretty hot planting, and there is room for a table and chairs near the kitchen by the back of the extension which will have a “sail” over it for shade.  At the back of the garden there is space for a table tennis table on decking  and the required shed.  The planting is to be soft with pretty foliage, white and green, and different shapes and textures possibly incorporating some formality in shrub shapes.  There will be new fencing to be painted black and trellising in horizontal lathes painted to a soft “seagrass” colour There is to be lighting along the rill and uplighters throughout the garden space.

First stop is the fencing… this is how it looked followed by how it looks now

You can see that the cement posts have been kept with fencing inserted in between them and then it has all been painted black – thereby losing the cement posts.  And then we have put horizontal painted lathes to bring the height up a bit and to create a very striking effect…And here you can see the back of the garden – how it was:And how it looks now:

Designed by Caroline Garland. Built by Townscapes

The next stage is marking out the garden for the various “rooms” and laying the concrete for the paved areas:

And then building the rill.  The trough has been cemented and the wall built for the water blade:The rill is taking shape

And the decking “bridges” are in place