Garden & Planting Design
Plant-rich Gardens Inspired by Nature
A garden that feels disjointed and lacks a sense of place can be frustrating and demoralizing. While creating a strong layout through garden design forms the backbone of the garden, planting often plays a crucial role in bringing a garden together and making it work as a unified whole. Similarly, introducing the right plants to a border that lacks vigour can breathe new life into a garden space.
During my time working in private gardens and at a specialist plant nursery, I've gained a solid foundation of plant knowledge and have always found pleasure in offering planting recommendations to my clients, create small planting plans, source plants and implement the scheme for them. Combined with my qualification in garden design I can provide you with professional guidance, take your ideas, requirements and dreams and create your personal calm, green space teeming with wildlife.
Designing your Garden
A Garden that works for You - your specific needs and what you need to get out of your garden
Hands-on and Collaborative - You won’t just be handed a design plan for your garden - you can be involved in shaping the design and your garden from the beginning. From planning to implementing the design we work together to make sure the resulting garden reflects your vision. Small soft-landscaping and installing the planting scheme are part of the service, allowing you to see the garden come to life step by step and gives you a chance to get involved yourself.
Practical Approach - I am quite practical and hands on in creating gardens and may be found sketching out the design in the garden with spray paint to experience the design with the client and have been seen working alongside clients in preparing their garden for planting together.
Budget-oriented, Practical Solutions - I don’t intend to create high-end, show gardens - I create well thought out, sustainable gardens without excessive costs
What to expect when we design your garden together
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On you first contacting me we will arrange a Site Meeting up to 3h, to walk around your garden and talk about your requirements.
Following that, I usually suggest a general garden maintenance session to work in your garden, tidying and at the same time assessing the condition of your existing planting, what the soil looks like and get a general feel for your garden. During this session, charged at my hourly garden maintenance rate, I will also take rough measurements of the borders.
If larger areas of the garden are to be redesigned an extra day may be necessary to measure up the site and take inventory. This is part of the design fee and will take place after the contract has been agreed. (see below)
Back at my desk I will write up a Design Proposal with your requirements and what is to be included. Together with the quote for the design fee this forms the contract going forward.
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Once contracts are signed in the case of planting design only, I will start working on creating a collection of suitable plants which I will then narrow down to the final selection. These plants will have been selected for their suitability to the soil and aspect of the garden, as well as their size within the border and flowering time/season of interest. This plant selection will also cater to your ideas and wishes for your garden and its plants.
For larger designs & layout changes please have a look at the Design Process Page.
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As part of a larger design (see Design Process) or for smaller planting designs where a Planting Plan is required.
The planting plan will show the positioning of the plants which are labelled to easily identify the name as well as a Plant List, showing quantities, plant sizes and flowering time/season of interest.
From creating the collection to the final plan can take a varied amount of time, depending on the size of the borders/garden.
A border for a small garden would take me about 5 working hours to produce whereas the planting of a whole medium-sized garden can take around 50 working hours.
Depending on your requirements I can produce rendered 3D Sketches that give you an idea of what the planting will look like in 3D. This can particular be helpful when trees or large shrubs for example for screening and you’d like to understand the feel of the space a bit more before committing to the final plan.
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I can help with sourcing the plants chosen for a scheme, laying out and planting. This is a separate contract to the design work and will be agreed on after the design work is finished.
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Costs vary depending on the size of the borders or garden and on the proposed changes to the layout of the garden.
For smaller planting designs from £300 for one border to £1300 for medium-sized garden, £75 for Initial Site Visit, charged separately.
For larger designs with layout changes, ca. £2000 for small town garden, ca. £3700 for medium-sized garden. Initial Site Consultation, charged at £75, offset against design fee
“My aim is to help clients build and maintain resilient gardens that support wildlife and people .Whether you want to lower your environmental impact or simply create a calming retreat, we design gardens that truly look after themselves and the people in them.”
Ready to start talking about plants?
Take the first step towards a thriving garden and get in touch to book a Site Visit, no strings attached, to discuss your requirements an see whether we can work together in bringing your garden to life. The first meeting will look something like this:
We will arrange a Site Meeting up to 3h, to walk around your garden and talk about your requirements. We can also sit down and look at photos that you have chosen for inspiration or other ideas that you would like to include in the garden. At this first visit I will also take rough measurements of your garden to get an idea of the size in square metre..