Contemporary family garden

Contemporary woodland garden

A contemporary woodland garden being built deep in the Essex country side. A beautiful space, set in mature woodland along a little country lane at the edge of a village.

The father of the family commutes to the city and the mum works from home as well as looking after two boys.

The house has just been extended by Jordan Moran from Original Construction

The part of the building you see here is a new kitchen and living area (in the centre), to the left a dining room and to the right a new utility area, porch and back door.

The main challenge

The change of level between the house and the lawn

Change of level down from the new extension

Patio area before

Patio before

As you can see from this photograph there is a large lawn, mature trees and also an ideal focal point on the furthest visible edge of the boundary.

Family woodland garden

I spent quite some time listening to the owners

To find out how they wanted the garden to work for them and the elements that they wanted to include

Atmosphere

• English country cottage
• Timeless classic

Wish list for the contemporary woodland garden

• Space for entertaining
• Hard standing around the house
• The hot tub to remain to the left of the house
• Box hedging
• Vegetable plot
• 5 meter wide patio outside the kitchen to take their existing table and chairs
• Area for playing football with two goal posts
• Sunken trampoline
• Wall seat
• Fire pit
• Rose arches
• Pergola
• Water/pond/fountain?

First draft of the landscaping plan

Who would be using the garden?

• The whole family
• Grown ups and kids
• Relations and friends

Pets

• Two dogs and a cat

How will the garden be used?

• Entertaining family and friends at lunchtime and evenings
• Boys football
• Trampolining
• Growing vetetables
• Cutting flowers
• The patio, lawn and garden should all look amazing when viewed from the new part of the house.
• The design of the patio and garden should set the house off when viewed from the garden

English country cottage

Plants to be included in the contemporary woodland garden

• Box
• White hydrangeas
• White lilac
• Viburnum opulus
• Roses
• Helibore

Planting plan

Predominant colours

• White
• Green
• Pink

Not yellow!

Time scale:

The landscaping design was needed as quickly as possible as Jordan from Original Construction was ready to start and also relatives from abroad were due to stay in the summer

Summer border with rose arch

The rose arch

Looking through rose arch

Left of the house leading to the hot tub

There was quite an awkward space leading to the hot tub, bamboo was gradually encroaching! The solution therefore was to cut back the bamboo, take out some of the roots and build a retaining wall. Then we could use the retaining wall for one of the items on the wish list; a wall seat curving round a fire pit.

Bamboo corner leading to the hot tub before photo

Bamboo corner leading to the hot tub after photo

The terrace with mirror poolsLooking from the hot tub

The finished terrace

Planting bulbs in the autumn

Allium bulbs planted in the rectangular beds under standard bay trees in amongst box hedging

Planting allium bulbs

Allium bulbs with box

We have recently planted 5,000 daffodil bulbs all around the garden so I am hoping to take some amazing photographs in the spring.

Narcissus Salome planted all around the garden

Bulbs just coming through

Bulbs Narcissi Salome spring 2018

Parts of the contemporary woodland garden that still need completing

• Raised bed in the woodland garden that will grow shade loving plants such as ferns and astilbes.
• Traditional country cottage flower bed along the side entrance path
• Focal point on the furthest boundary looking from the house.

Entrance to the woodland walk and woodland border

Please follow this link to an updated post.

The lovely owners of this garden very kindly wrote the following testimonial .

“We have been very pleased and impressed with the work that Wendy has done for us. 

She has continually gone out of her way for us,  from the design stage to the execution of the landscaping.

Her dedication to the project has been faultless, her ideas were ingenious and her skills outstanding.

Wendy really took the time to find out what was to our taste and we are absolutely thrilled with what she has created for us.

I have no hesitation in recommending Wendy to anyone. We never could have created something so good without her expertise.“

If you would like a Garden Design of your own starting with a free consultation in your own garden, please telephone 07843 410869 or send me a message via the contact page 

Until then

Happy Gardening

Wendy