Tranquil coastal garden with Japanese influences
For this back garden, the brief was to create a space that the clients could relax in and enjoy colourful planting. It needed to be family friendly and low maintenance as well as offering inside-outside living to connect to the newly renovated house. Habitat and food sources for wildlife needed to be included in addition to space to grow plants with year-round interest, herbs and cut flowers. The style of the garden needed to mimic the coastal surroundings and should be informal with natural shapes and materials, but also include some Japanese influences.
We wanted to give the client a number of different spaces where they could relax and be immersed in soft, naturalistic planting, whilst also offering a range of focal points to stop and admire. The width of the space allowed for various routes to be introduced and the space to be divided up to include a Zen garden, a paved seating area and a more relaxed seating space using self-binding gravel amongst planting and wildlife. Some of the key hard landscaping features included slimline, sawn sandstone plank paving and a naturally covered, black pergola, both of which were designed to tie in with the modern house renovation. A black, grey and white material colour palette has been used throughout to further complement the style of the house, including grey-toned gravel and timber sleepers and fence paneling painted black.
Lush, low maintenance planting has been incorporated across the garden including pockets of planting within the hard landscaping, to create a soft, naturalistic effect. The planting was chosen to draw on the structure and form of woodland inspired by nearby Holywell Dene and the clients’ love of Japanese Zen gardens. It needed to be salt, wind and drought tolerant to stand up to coastal conditions. Matrix planting including grasses (Stipa tennuissima and Molinia caerulea 'Edith Dudszus') have been used throughout to create a cohesive, naturalistic design and unite the various zones within the garden. Astrantia major ‘Gill Richardson’, Amsonia 'Blue Ice', Nepeta racemosa 'Walker's Low' and Veronicastrum virginicum 'Fascination' provide colourful highlights whilst perennials such as Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost', Tellima grandiflora, Luzula nivea, Veronicastrum virginicum 'Album' give low maintenance structure throughout the seasons. Autumn and winter interest is ensured with Acer palmatum, Cornus alba 'sibirica', Cercis siliquastrum and Molinia caerulea 'Edith Dudszus'. Prunus lusitanica, Luzula nivea, Elaeagnus × ebbingei and Lavandula × intermedia Dutch Group are amongst the plants offering evergreen form and structure. Boulders have also been dotted across the garden to emulate those found on the coast and to blend the hard and soft landscaping.
We also completed a front garden for this project.
Project stage: completed
