Northamptonshire Garden design 

This design combines the existing historic walls and mature trees with a pared down modernist aesthetic that carves out distinct destinations and vistas within the space. The network of paths and stairways on the bank have been consolidated and re-routed in places to create a user-friendly journey around the garden, with seating areas across various different levels. Accessibility is improved, but with a lighter touch in terms of hardscape. The large beds beneath the trees are banked where possible, rather than terraced, for a less formal and more natural aesthetic. Timber decked platforms, evocative of tree houses, provide stopping points from which to admire the view of the garden and beyond. The design is conceived with the existing ground levels in mind, in order to keep groundworks to a minimum.

The design utilises stone – whether boulders, step-stones, pavers or gravel, the material provides a visual link to the existing dry-stone walls and will give the bank a more naturalistic and less man-made feel. Corten steel will be utilised to retain the soil within the bank, as well as for step risers, providing a visual juxtaposition to the stone – a modern, minimalist element that will tone in quietly with the rest of the garden.

The planting schemes form different landscape ‘types’ within the space. The lawn level contains pockets of meadow and multi-stem specimen trees – the verticals are key to draw the eye up the bank and soften the height differentiation. The lower portion of the bank will be given over to sun-loving Mediterranean shrubs and perennials, as well as productive veg beds. The upper portion of the bank has a woodland feel and the planting is less cultivated, with ferns and ground cover beneath the trees, as well as specimen shrubs and small Japanese Acer trees amongst moss covered boulders. There will be a mass of Spring bulbs here too.

Water is an important element within this garden, the existing waterfall will be sparsely planted as a ravine garden, with water running into two ponds over two levels, one crossed by step stones and the other accommodating a jetty from where to sit and observe the wildlife. The minimalist Japanese influence is translated into elements that sit very naturally within this landscape.