URBAN - Modern Organic
This Brighton garden is located in the residential tree lined Conservation area of Preston Park. Our client needed a family and wildlife friendly space. The garden was outdated and needed a full refresh, both in terms of hard landscaping, materials and planting.
The brief was to create an easy to care for safe haven for the family and to invite as much wildlife into the garden as possible.
Above all, this garden needed to be child and environmentally friendly. There were other issues to resolve with an extension having poorly designed steps into the garden, which made them dangerous to use. The existing planting consistent of overgrown mature evergreen shrubs that took up a lot of space but didn’t do much to make the garden inviting. Our aim was to transform it and make it seasonally interesting, resilient, drought proof and pollinator friendly through thoughtful planting.
We needed to:
Make sense of the external hard landscaping
Change the steps into the garden
Create clever seating to maximise the use of space
Make the garden walls safe by cladding them
Retain some lawn for the children to kick a ball around
Create new planting areas and update the planting style
Introduce a tree which would attract wildlife
Provide shading in form of a resilient and drought tolerant tree
Create a raised wildlife pond that is safe for children to observe
Use only natural and porous materials
Create new raised beds including soft fruit and herb garden
Facilitate rain water harvesting
The existing garden was outdated and impractical for a young family. There were problems with poorly designed steps at the rear of the building, which needed to be urgently addressed to create safe access into the garden from the kitchen. The planting was block like and poorly thought out, the garden felt unloved and underused.
Our design turned it into a naturalistic outdoor space using clever planting techniques and timber cladding along the boundary.
We created clear zones within the space:
By the house: clever seating that merges with the new steps
In the garden: updated borders including edibles and ornamentals
At the back : seating in a space surrounded by planting under a tree
We used a palette of natural materials for a fresh modern look:
green oak sleepers for the raised beds
reclaimed scaffolding boards for the boundary fence and the custom made seating area blending steps and seating
resin bound gravel to allow rain water to drain
reclaimed paving slabs for the path and rear patio
We included lots of plants which would allow the children to take part in cooking, gardening and harvesting. We included:
Herb garden: Thyme, Oregano, Rosemary, Lemon Balm and Sage
Soft fruit: Strawberries and raspberries
Herbaceous perennials: Hylotelephium (Sedum), Verbenas, Salvias, grasses, Lavender, Geraniums and spring bulbs such as Narcissus, Crocus and Snowdrops
Trees: a multi stem Hazel to attract wildlife and create shade and a young Olive tree to create a green screen to the garden at the back.
