| Case study - 1 A Garden Transformed |
The briefSimplify the garden whilst maintaining the established shrubs.
A large area of paving was needed by the house for entertaining. The existing willow was to be kept in the middle of the garden in a possible planter. A stand alone water feature was to be included in the design too. A large area of grass was fine, but they didn't want shingle. The lawn was to have solid edging for ease of maintenance. The clients didn't want an angular garden, they wanted curves and flowing lines. They also gave me a sketch of a shape they had seen and quite liked, and asked if I could use that as inspiration for the design. DevelopmentI took that and found further inspiration from the works of Salvador Dali.
"The final design incorporates the elements that the clients were looking for in a smooth, flowing design that draws the visitor into the garden to explore".
A corner seating area away from the house makes a retreat in which to enjoy the views back along the garden. A vegetable garden is hidden away behind a trellis screen and forms a false boundary to the garden – making the shape of the garden more uniform. The existing planting gives the garden a maturity and the new lawn binds all the hard and soft landscape elements together.
   Further workThe second phase was the design of the front garden incorporating a new driveway. I continued the inspiration from the back garden and applied it to the front. So once again we have the flowing lines and a sense of 'skewing' that occurs in Dali's paintings. The drive is actually offset to the house so it made sense to play on that. "All the areas of block paving and shingle exaggerate this skewing effect, creating visual impact on a 'flat' canvass.  
The raised planter adds a vertical element to the design and acts as a focal point. Alterations to the plan are sometimes necessary when translating a design from paper to reality, in this case it was decided not to have areas of different blocks in the drive and maintain a uniform sweep of block paving in order to keep costs down.
Also the raised bed, which was designed to be a more modern feature in white painted rendered concrete blocks – became a more sympathetic Purbeck stone planter. This then tied in with the stone cladding on the bungalow and repeated the stone planter in the back garden.
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Taking inspiration from the shapes found in Dali's paintings, I adapted them and drew up the plan for the garden. The pictures and sketches below show the design process.