Cleveland
Click on a photo to enlarge. Scroll down to have a read of the process involved!
Undoubtedly a favourite for all of us. Clemens and Jessica were a delight to work with and collaborated with us throughout the garden design process, playing around with and tweaking different ideas and concepts before arriving at the final design choice and then the garden installation phase.
We began with the initial dig-out of existing elements, such as turf, soil, debris, unwanted trees, and the old concrete wall on the left, which was a last-minute addition. Its integrity was questionable and we didn't feel comfortable fixing an expensive larch screening to it when we were not sure how long it would last. We came across concrete and an old path that the prior homeowners had simply turfed over. This combined with the poor quality of the soil meant that we had to excavate a total of 20 tons of soil across the garden.
Once we arrived at the garden installation phase we began to fly through it, starting with erecting the new fence, painting it, and creating the Siberian larch batten screen to give our clients ultimate privacy as well as aesthetics. Our clients opted for London Stone's contemporary Florence grey porcelain that we laid over two separate areas including the stepping stone path that leads up the garden. The hard landscaping was finished off with the construction of single-tiered, raised plant beds made of oak sleepers. Jelvis then came in to install the garden lighting.
At this stage we pulled off the project so that Vivid Green could install the new, luxury outbuilding and a couple of months later we returned to do the soft landscaping, thereby completing the project with fresh turf and a plethora of beautiful plants.
We brought in 18 tons of fresh topsoil, levelled it out and laid the turf; then we planted 8, two-meter-high, multi-stemmed bays, spaced out along the right border. Throughout both beds, we planted a combination of smaller shrubs such as lavender, catnip, perovskia, verbenas, white hydrangeas, stipa and miscanthus sinensis.
Other specimen plants used include a hydrangea ‘Unique’, a pair of fragrant Jasmines beautifully entwined around frames in sunken beds, and the centrepiece was the black-stemmed clusters of bamboo. It is a less invasive type, however, we took precautions by limiting the roots with a barrier. The bamboo creates a magnificent living wall. The project was complete after mulching, laying decorative chippings and cleaning off all the paving.