The former garden
I was asked to redesign this garden for a couple in Bradford. They had not long since moved to the property and were not happy with the garden in its current form. There was a large section of artificial grass, a straight path and some quite shallow steep steps leading from the house. The wish was to have a beautiful cottage style garden with an abundance of flowers and lovely foliage throughout the year. The couple specified that they wanted the steps remodelling to have a wider tread and to be more of a feature. Also to have places to sit and a ‘journey’ around the garden with some low dry stone wall edged beds which would house their favourite plants. They also planned to purchase a large focal water feature.
The Redesign
The new design for the garden started with the remodelling of the steps. These were designed to curve and taper into a natural entrance to the new path which comprises of gravel and the reused stone from the previous pathway. This path snakes around the garden flanked by new curved and shaped raised beds made from natural walling stone. A rockery feature was placed in one corner and seating areas in another two. A large corten steel container dominates the central kidney-shaped planting bed. The former wooden fencing has been replaced on two sides with beautiful bespoke metal railings and a new handrail has been added to the step feature.
Clearing the site
A great local landscaper Danny took on the job and started by clearing the site. The path and small patio were taken up and retained for re-use in the garden and the artificial lawn was removed and recycled to a new local owner. The steps were demolished and the areas marked out for the new design. Some of the planting in the rear bed was retained but generally everything else went leaving a very bare and muddy blank canvas!
Starting to take shape
Luckily the base used for the artificial grass also made a great hardcore base for the paths around the garden so this was left. The hardcore was removed from the floor where the planting beds were to go and the spaces edged with lovely authentic walling stone. These low walls were cleverly secured with mortar from behind to give the appearance that they are natural dry stone walls but in fact they are very sturdy and able to retain the weight of the soil and planting. The large kidney shaped central bed was then edged with a lower stone surround. This will allow creeping plants to spill out onto the path in a naturalistic informal cottage style. The large container visible in the central bed was originally purchased as a still water pool but sadly it was discovered not to be water tight and so ‘plan b’ had to come into action and it became a large planter instead!
Step and path construction
With the planting beds largely in place, Danny embarked on the construction of the curved steps and making the random cottage pathway round the garden using the reclaimed pavers from the former patio.
Ready for planting!
With the walls, steps and pavers in place all that remained was to fill the paver surround with a lovely warm brown gravel and the beds with fresh new topsoil. But there is definitely something missing ……… the planting!!
As this build was completed over the winter months we are still waiting for the spring weather and the passing of the last frosts to plant up the garden so watch this space!! Updates to follow. So here are some pictures of the lovely completed hard landscaping for now.
UPDATE – beautiful planting SPRING 2022
The garden owners have kindly forwarded these pictures of the planting that is now in situ in their garden. We worked together on a list of cottage plants that would suit the hard landscaping and the effect they wished to achieve but they did all the planting themselves. And they have made a great job of it! These first few pictures show the planting when it first went in during spring 2022.
UPDATE – beautiful planting SUMMER 2022
And here are some updated photos of the more mature planting during the summer season. Height has been provided by cottage favourites such as foxgloves and wallflowers with both structural planting and ground cover to compliment providing a riot of summer colour.
