Gardens Designed, Built and Managed

This sloping new-build garden was built on a brownfield site, the site of RN Copenacre. It had the most appalling, heavy, clay soil, filled with rubble. Rather than spend thousands pulling out the rubble, sending it to landfill and bringing in tonnes of alien topsoil, Charlotte and landscaper Jon Gerrish, from Paved in Stone, worked with the soil and slope, creating hoggin paths that lead you on a journey around the garden and planting it with wild flowers and clay-loving roses, perennials and trees.

Because the garden slopes towards the house, making the garden as permeable as possible was key. The paving was kept to a minimum, just enough to hold a table and chairs, the larger paved area was laid to permeable wood effect sleepers. We can now rest easy that this garden will not contribute to the water run-off that plagues heavily paved and plastic turfed gardens.

The client is heavily into yoga, meditation and is a crystal healer they also love wildlife, cottage gardens and shabby chic décor, the challenge was to fit this all into a relatively small garden. This is when Charlotte hit on the Yin and Yan idea to represent the two sides of the client. A corridor of white planting and a beautiful lawn of wildflower turf acts as the transition point.

The four seating areas are placed carefully to make the most of the sun at different times of the day with room to add a yoga pavilion and moon gate in the future.

Garden built by Paved in Stone