Design and Build: Hard and Soft Landscaping in Haslington, Crewe.
The Brief
This garden was just… a lawn. It had no interest. Our client wanted a seating area away from the house, low maintenance planting plus lighting and still enough lawn space. The water feature and decking also needed to be restored. So we created this…
Project Summary
Location: Haslington, near Sandbach
Project Type: Garden landscaping… design & build
Completed: May 2023
Timescale: 1-2 weeks
Client Type: Private homeowner
Lead Designer: Andrew Goodwin
Budget: £5-10,000
Our Site Assessment & Spec’
On arrival:
Large lawn.
Sloping down in the back corner, where seating area was required.
Outdoor socket by the house.
Poor access, down long side path.
Our specifications:
Structurally retained circular patio in the back corner.
Bamboo with root zone barrier providing backdrop to the seating area
Design & Construction Decisions
The garden had to flow smoothly with no straight lines. This required setting out using arc, circumference, the golden ratio and distance to create a well balanced and proportional garden.
The pathway of gravel was laid onto non-woven weed proof membrane over a firm base having cut away the turf to 5cm depth. This was edged with galvanised lawn edging for a durable holding of shape.
The patio was selected to be a 3m diameter circle pack of Indian Sandstone.
Plants were selected to include black bamboo, acer, buxus, ornamental grasses and a select few herbaceous perennials for minimal and ease of maintenance.
The bamboo had to be contained within a Kevlar root barrier to prevent encroachment into the neighbours garden.
Challenges & Solutions
Creating successful planting zones from a compact lawn first required lawn removal with a turf cutter, we than used a rotovator to break up the soil before adding a mulch of compost and deep forking to incorporate and ensure loose soil below the root zone.
The patio in the corner required construction of a perfectly circular retaining wall of sleepers, which was then filled with 150mm of compacted Type 1 MOT giving a subbase for the patio.
We created an amphitheatre by using the circumference of the circle to equally space vertical sleepers, which were in turn angled back by 5 degrees off vertical.
This timber work was set in poured C20 concrete for secure holding and long term durability
The Outcome
This garden was transformed into from a bland and boring lawn into a true garden with structural interest, multiple usable spaces plus year round interest and after-dark ambiance.
Having visited to support with maintenance a few times since completion, the plants have thrived and flourished; whilst the buxus balls succumbed to box blight so unfortunately did not survive.
The seating are continues to look stunning as a real focal point; still as strong and stable as the day it was built.
About Goodwin Gardens Ltd
We are qualified paving contractors, with horticultural knowledge and experience of all garden landscape installations. We are design and build specialists offering in-house services from garden design, to groundwork’s and all completed installation’s. Five star rated with and high quality reputation.