Marlow Town Garden, Buckinghamshire

URBAN SMALL GARDEN DESIGN IN MARLOW

The design for this courtyard garden in the riverside town of Marlow is inspired by the furniture and eclectic selection of planters within it. The pots are used to frame and divide the space, creating separate dining and seating areas on two levels. They have planting in the gravel around their bases to soften the edges, but equally could be reconfigured should the requirements for the space change in future. The various elements are knitted together with a pared down palette of hard materials that sits quietly against the architecture. The natural clay brick pavers are a nod to tradition and will give an aged patina before long, while the stack-bonded laying pattern adds a modern twist.

The planting style is loose and naturalistic, a soft foil to the formal linear structure elsewhere. A combination of perennials and ornamental grasses give a semi- transparent, ethereal quality to the scheme, and help disguise the boundaries. The design is conceived with the existing ground levels in mind, in order to keep groundworks to a minimum.