City Garden - Chessington, Surrey

 

Design Inspiration - the design was taken from a formal garden in Milan, Italy. This garden was formed from terraces and waterfalls creating a relaxing and cooling atmosphere. The design brief was to create an interesting garden within a small space. The design called for the garden to be split into several areas -

• Decking seating area
• Pergola creating a vista view
• Split level patio
• Water Feature
• Planting

Each area is based on a different level, although the change in levels between the patio, decking and water feature are only a few inches it is enough to create interest. Many formal large formal gardens are created by dividing the space into several areas and combined with vista and focal points.

 

In this garden we have used the same theory, but changed the scale to fit the space available. Practical considerations centred around the need to create privacy from the neighbour's house which due to the houses being built on a hill caused the first floor windows to over look the garden. We solved this by creating a pergola, which interrupted the view from next door and framed the vista to the gardens entrance.

 

Bad drainage is the other major practical concern, due to a heavy clay soil. However the drainage problem has been solved at the design stage with the creating of the split-level, allowing the construction of a French drain at the back of the low wall and under the middle planting bed.

 

As with all the gardens we design and build we try to make them as low maintenance as possible. To achieve this in this garden we used ground sheeting combined with gravel and bark mulch. This sheeting allows the water to pass through but prevents weeds growth by smothering them.

 

Relaxing is to be the main purpose of the garden and with this in mind we have used the change in levels to create a water feature to provide another dimension to the garden in the form of moving water.

 

The garden after the first days construction

 

For more information please contact one of our garden advisors at advisors@gardenadvice.co.uk