Garden Design and Construction
Date: April – May 2020
Location: Astbury, Congleton, Cheshire
Project: Garden design and construction
Description: The client was sick of how featureless and boring the back garden looked. But wasn’t sure what to do with it but definitely wanted something interesting done to the large bank side. Including a water feature. And wanted a contemporary look.
The plan was to terrace the bank side with sleepers and incorporate a water feature to the front with water blades and then to fill the terraced areas with contemporary planting done in a formal way by using some big statement palm trees and rows of Phormiums in different colours with smaller ornamental grasses on the bottom areas with a row of lavender in the middle for a splash of summer colour. The flat garden area I designed with an oval shape decking in front of the water feature then coming on to an oval lawn. The client did request for some tree ferns so we made a fern bed in the darkest corner of the garden with the other corners to have mixed planting. The opposite end of the garden I designed a raised sleeper bed to reflect the bank side. New paving was designed to link all the areas together.
Due to budget constraints we couldn’t quite do all to the design. But we’re able to keep the main feature the bank side and water feature and slightly alter the spec on the other areas. One big saving we were able to do was to keep the old Indian stone paving but had it cleaned up and repointed with resin. And we found some second hand stone to match to create the linking paths. And when all cleaned and pointed looks like new.
While we were installing the lawn edging we found a well buried in the garden. This was an old brick lined one probably original to the property when it was a farm barn. So the client thought we may as well embrace it. So we decided to build it up and make a feature of it, built with old brick to make it look as if it’s always been there.
Garden lighting was then added and all planting areas finished off with slate chippings for a contemporary finish.
