L-Shaped Family Garden

Project Details

• Location: Wokingham
  
• What we did: Design, Construction, Lighting, Planting
  
• Cost: Circa £20k + VAT
  

We were asked to create a relatively low maintenance garden that was child and bird friendly (our client loves birds!), a quiet and private oasis. A back door to the kitchen had recently been installed in the quiet area to the side of the house, so we designed a small, cosy and very private patio which is also quite a suntrap. Our clients love it and spend the vast majority of their time outside here.

An unusual aspect of this site was that whilst the house has a front door, the clients and their visitors normally enter the house and garden via the back gate – as this is where the parking area is (the gate has a doorbell and coded lock).  So the design needed to give easy access and to provide some impact for visitors entering via this route.  The main patio was therefore re-orientated to add interest, make the garden look bigger, and most importantly to help to integrate the garden better, so that it flows from one part to the other more fluidly. The re-orienting also meant that there was more demarcation between the path to the house from the gate, and the main patio itself.

A pergola walk way connects the two patios seamlessly, with curved beds flowing naturally around the side of the house. Note also the little water feature that is centred on the view through the pergola looking from the small patio, but also sits next to the main patio to give a bit of gentle interest there.

Finally, our client’s daughter loves her trampoline, so another part of the design brief was to adjust the terrain, ensuring a level area for the trampoline on what is a sloping site.