creation of a cottage garden - part 1: the challenge

In this series of posts, I want to go through the stages that are involved in designing and creating a garden from client brief, through the design process on to construction and planting and finally, completion.
Here, in part 1 we look at the the challenge we are presented with following our first view of the garden and discussion of the requirements.

In spring 2010 we were comissioned to create a design for a large suburban garden. At over 25 mentres long and 16 metres wide, it was not your average sized garden!





The garden was quite bare and uninteresting with an expanse of lawn and some over pruned shrubs. It felt somewhat cut off from the house and patio area.





A number of large mature trees had been cut down leaving the owners exposed to other houses on their boundary wall. 





The clients wanted a screen along boundary walls to afford privacy from neighbours' houses. The swing and Wendy house had long outlived their usefulness.





A woodland/cottage garden feel was what they had requested as they felt it would reflect the cottage style of their house.

We wanted to create a private sanctuary with a cottage feel. We also felt the garden needed more shape and definition. In essence we had to create a garden that was more accessible from the house and encouraged people to explore.

In the next post I will look at how we apporached a design that satisfied the clients' brief as well as our vision to create a wonderful cottage garden close to the centre of a busy city.