Garden with the dog in mind
BRIEF
This was a relatively small garden with quite a few things on our client’s wish list:
- An area for sitting and entertaining that made the most of the sun
- An area for growing fruit, vegetables and herbs as well as a small green house
- A ‘secret garden’ area that felt slightly separate from the rest of the garden
- A water feature
- Incorporate some grape vines
Often we are designing gardens we are balancing a range of factors – attempting to include as much of the client’s wish list. as possible whilst at the same time working with the constraints and opportunities presented by the site. On this project, we also needed to create a garden design that took account of:
- Their dog! They had a rescue dog that could get over-excited about noise coming from next door and would tend to lunge at the fence. Our client also wanted to create some sort of circular ‘track’ for the dog to run around as he liked to run through the current garden.
- The slope! Gardens on a slope normally present more of a design challenge than those that are flat. In this case the garden sloped away from the house and became steeper as you approached the boundary
- The neighbours! Not that the client disliked their neighbours, but being within an estate of houses, meant that some houses overlooked their garden and were also a pretty prominent part of their view from within the garden.
- The shade! the garden was North facing – with the house putting much of the garden into the shade, except in the middle of the day in Summer.
It is our job as garden designers to find a design solution that balances all these factors whilst working well as a design and creating a space where our clients love to spend time.
DESIGN SOLUTION
Our design delivered everything our client was looking for in their garden and they were delighted with it! We managed to resolve some of the challenging aspects of the site, by incorporating them into the design – creating a virtue out of necessity.
The slope toward the boundary fence was planted with a mix of trees, shrubs and perennials to create a green ‘buffer’ between them and their neighbour and prevent the dog from getting to the fence so easily. A ‘half pergola’ was designed to echo some of the structures that are seen in vineyards. It was designed to create a sense of privacy and enclosure from next door whilst being more open to the South – allowing sun to reach the seated area beneath. Wires were added to the structure to allow grape vines to grow over the seating area, providing dappled shade that could easily be adjusted through deliberate pruning of the grape vine.
Nearby we created a small ‘hidden garden’ seating area with a fire pit which was surrounded by a combination of trees, shrubs and vertical ‘fins’ which divided the space without separating it completely. These fins obscured views of the compost heaps that the client wanted to have space for.
At this end of the garden, and easily accessible from the main seating area, were some corten steel curved raised beds and a step up to a multi purpose paved area for a bbq, food preparation and green house.
The garden was entered through a Rose Arch, leading to a circular path – designed for the dog to run around. The circular path was dissected by straight paths that linked the 4 corners of the garden and tilted the axes of the garden – making it feel larger. These paths lead to a water feature at the centre which formed a focal point and lead the eye into the centre of the garden – away from the neighbouring houses. The arrangement of paths and addition of small specimen trees created several alternative routes around the garden and created depth to the space – again making the garden feel larger than it actually is.
This garden incorporated several of the approaches we use in small gardens to make them feel larger. We have designed a number of gardens across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire that have also made clever use of space – including our award winning Breeze House Garden in Thame.
