The Original Garden Space
I was contacted by two lovely customers who had just moved into their new build home on the outskirts of Beverley. As is usually the case with a new build property, they had a bare plot of ground and needed some help re-imagining the space. The couple were clear that they did not want a contemporary garden with paved patios but that they wished to attract wildlife and nature into their space with the use of lovely plants, materials and water. As can be seen in the pictures, the garden tapered to a long thin point from the house to the end of the plot.
The Design
The design focusses on providing a journey to travel from the house through the garden to the shady wildlife area at the back. The winding stepping stone path is flanked by two large curved planting beds and there is also a dedicated circle to grow herbs. One of the main features of the garden is the oval shaped wildlife pond. The design is structured so that an informal seating area sits adjacent to the pond shaded by tall grasses. Here the owners can sit and relax, immersed in the natural environment of the garden. A suitable planting plan containing trees, shrubs, perennials, grasses and wildflowers compliments the style of the garden and many of the specimens will provide food and shelter for the wild visitors. Decorative gravel and large bark chips provide the flooring for the different areas of the garden.
As always I modelled the design using SketchUp Pro and Layout software so that the customers could see what their garden would look like when completed.
Work Gets Underway
As the design did not require any hard-landscaping in the form of laying paving or building walls, I decided against sourcing landscapers for this project and opted to build the garden myself. I marked out the different areas of the garden and edged the planting borders and herb circle with a flexible edging strip to avoid the flooring materials merging together. The path sections then had a good quality landscape fabric laid to prevent weed growth appearing through the gravel and bark.
The Wildlife Pond
A successful wildlife garden should always have a water source and in this case we opted for a wildlife pond. I decided to go with an oval shape with two levels or shelves for planting and a gradual slope at one end to assist any wildlife to exit the water should they wish to. Once the pond shape was dug out and firmed, a good quality underlay and pond liner were added and worked into the shape as the pond was filled with water. Some lovely flat paddlestones were used to edge the pond and the remaining liner trimmed to shape.
The Garden Flooring
The rear section of the garden is floored using chunky bark chips as opposed to normal landscape bark. This will weather much better and not require replacing as often. It also provides a great eco-environment for creatures to live in at this shady end of the garden amongst the logs and ferns.
The remainder of the garden paths are floored with a golden corn gravel which the functional border edging keeps separate from the planting areas.
The Planting
Two trees are planted in the garden which will benefit wildlife – a Prunus accolade and a Crataegus (Hawthorn) tree. These are accompanied by plants such as Sambucus, Buddleia, Acer, Miscanthus, Lavandula, Achillea and Phlox all of which will attract wildlife for food and shelter. Evergreen grasses provide a year round structure to the planting and tough alpines are planted into the gravel adjacent to the pathway. The pond is well stocked with pond plants and a beautiful water lily.
The Completed Garden
Hopefully you will agree that this garden space has been transformed from a long blank area of soil to somewhere for the garden owners to relax and enjoy the nature and wildlife which will surely now visit them.
