Classic terraced garden

This small, awkward-shaped, rear garden sloped from left to right and from the house up towards the rear boundary. As the client was about to embark on a major home renovation project, including a four-metre extension, the main requirement was to re-design the whole garden, transforming it into a green oasis of inter-connected, level areas enabling the entire space to be used for outdoor dining and relaxation. The overall style is classic-contemporary featuring hard landscaping materials that complement the house and a planting palette featuring peaceful creams and whites offset against a variety of low-maintenance evergreens that add texture and year-round structure in the garden. Screening to increase privacy, and disguise an adjacent church hall building, was paramount with shrubs and hedging used to blur the boundaries as they become established. To exploit the change in levels a series of terraces, steps and retaining walls break up the space into discrete zones. New bi-folding doors lead directly out onto a new outdoor dining patio paved in large grey sawn sandstone pavers. From here, an extra-wide run of steps lead up to the main lawn. Across the lawn, more steps lead to a small sun terrace located at the highest point in the garden allowing the owners to enjoy the late afternoon sun while overlooking a lower lawn area with raised beds filled with plants that gently cascade over the walls further softening the cool, calm relaxing effect.