This design focuses on the clients love of gardening. Based on a Victorian plant hunters botanical theme, the planting is all about foliage. To set the plants off to their best the garden boundaries are clad with a contemporary horizontal softwood timber slats and painted black. The lower section of the garden adjoining the house was restructured to create a larger more useable area, with a curved retaining wall across the garden. To the left of this is a seating area comprising fibreglass planters with a built-in hardwood timber bench. To the right is a Victorian inspired mini greenhouse. New curved steps were constructed opposite the back door. These steps are wide and shallow to enable easy access to the upper garden.

Paving throughout the space is comprised of cream porcelain tiles laid in a diagonal stretcher pattern in a curved spiral motif. A pebble mosaic ‘rug’ forms the centre of the spiral shape. To make gardening and maintenance as easy as possible, all planting in the upper garden is contained within curved raised beds constructed from rendered concrete blocks and painted a zesty lime green. These beds are formed of several sections, each increasing in height by 20 cm increments, with the tallest in the back left corner of the space. The rear boundary fence was clad with a panel of green Perspex to reflect the Victorian botanical inspired theme of the space and provide a stylish backdrop on which to display the client’s London Underground sign and other ephemera. A bespoke bench seat constructed from a length of reclaimed docklands fender timber gives a nod towards the heritage of the area. To the right of the space, a tall sentry box style storage unit allows storage for waterproof scatter cushions and garden tools.

The planting scheme has a lush feel, with a backbone of shrubs, new architectural specimens and some of the clients existing plants including several established yukka.