Low Maintenance City Garden Design

A low maintenance garden was required for a young professional couple where they can eat out, entertain and generally relax. It also needed to provide interest all year round.

£3,000-£5,000
 

The patio was replaced nearer the house, using a good quality riven slab that was beautifully coloured to introduce light and texture. This complemented the colours of the house, both interior and exterior. It also created a wide seating area to accommodate table and chairs and provide a delightful breakfast seating area to take advantage of the morning sunshine.

A second seating area was installed at the bottom end of the garden, positioned to receive the late afternoon and early evening sunshine.

To break up the boxy nature of the garden, these main seating areas were on staggered levels, with a central gravelled and paved area to provide contrast and continuity.

These in turn flowed into replacement steps at the far end of the garden, built around a sycamore tree, and provided access to the rear garden gate. These important areas required a framework working to the horizontal with graduated raised beds.

The fencing was replaced or treated and where overlooked new arched trellising was installed to break up the square lines. This also provided screening with supports for a variety of climbers.

All the planting was replaced. This is not usually the course of action as plants are expensive and any plants that are healthy, especially if mature, should be worked into a design where possible. In this instance, however, the clients particularly disliked the existing style of planting and insisted all must go. A large outsized eucalyptus was removed, although the second more compact variety worked well with the new layout.

The garden did not get a huge amount of sun in one area so all plants had to be able to cope with a certain amount of shade as well as a clay soil. Organic soil improver and compost were added at the planting stage, together with fish, blood and bone to give the plants a good start; all beds were top-dressed with soil improver to finish.

The new structure to the garden provided variety of height throughout, shaping and changing the perspective on the whole garden, and giving a more open and welcoming feel to the entire area.