We started this project in late June and the client didn’t think that they’d be able to enjoy the garden that year, but within the nine days of our work we gave them a complete garden, finished to a high standard, with vegetables that could be picked straight away and an outdoor space that could be enjoyed for the rest of the summer and beyond!

The client had put a black sheet over the whole garden to suppress weeds to create a blank canvas for us to start our work, which was a great help!

We started by rotating the soil to prep the area for grass seed and created a solid frame for the garden using upcycled bricks and updating their old tired fence to a new scaffold board fence that we painted black. This already transformed the feeling of the space!

We separated the garden into two halves, with a bespoke built gate in between to separate the areas, using just wood and branches from their garden.

The first half was closest to their house, so we seeded this with a hardwearing grass seed so they could enjoy the garden with their future child.

We added log stumps and stepping stones over the grass to create access from the house to the gate in the vegetable area. This is so the grass didn’t get muddy. 

Each side of the first half of the garden had borders; the left had perennial flowers and the right had Mediterranean vegetables.

Separating the two halves of the garden was a gate that joined onto a tree, to the left of a greenhouse, which marked the way into the growing space.

In the second half, past the gate on the left, we made a wildlife area from logs and planted wildflowers, with a compost bay tucked out of sight in the shade.

Clockwise from the wildlife area we put in raised vegetable beds, sitting on woodchip.

There was also a grassy area with a fire pit and seating, with festoon lights, for nighttime enjoyment.

A food forest border included fruit trees, fruit bushes and herbs, with a small 1/4 whiskey barrel with a solar-powered fountain to encourage good predators to get rid of predators that would eat their vegetables.