Challenges to deal with :

• Narrow access
• State of front of site at commencement of job - managing/dealing with client expectations
• Sheer volume of spoil to dig off and take away to achieve required terracing and footings
• High water table - saturated land
• Neighbouring garden land higher in two conflicting planes
• How to manage step out and down from extension and transition into garage
• Limited space to work in

Proposed design Elements for inclusion :

• Define a deep a high border to be retained by a porcelain tile clad concrete filled block wall - with coping at top of garden to retain/contain existing feature palms
• Take mains power to top of garden and around to "kitchen" patio to facilitate sockets for lighting control box and BBQ rotisserie
• Design retaining walls for shallow raised beds, stepping down parallel to neighbours existing fence thus retaining their soil at its existing level when clients land is dug off and carted away to create level lawn and seating area patio
• Client requested existing fence to be spray painted grey on his side to complement colour scheme inside the new open plan kitchen/diner
• We responded by suggesting that the side and rear of the new seating area should be defined/highlighted by new horizontal slat fencing left natural to contrast with the painted fence panels and to clad/soften the end elevation of the brick built garage
• Fence battening allowed mains cable for led wall lights to be taken as its own circuit to the Light Symphony r/f listing control box as a separate switchable zone.
• We specified land drainage and connected it to the existing surface water drain and installed ducting for lawn irrigation via pop up sprinklers to be supplied from the mains with appropriate non return valve fitted to meet regulations.
• We proposed a textured, anti slip, expose granite trap paving slab that could be cut to work as a mowing edge and as a broken bond paver -quite a small unit size in order top optimise the feeling of space. A robust and solid, hard wearing slab that is laid on a. full screed of sharp sand, vibrated down with mild dried sand filled joints - like block paving
• We proposed porcelain tiles to clad and cope the raised bed walls so as to complement the new contemporary interior and the clients chosen new garden furniture
• We raised man hole covers to suit and filled with matching paving and joint lines
• We supplied and fitted mains powered led down/uplighters for wall mounting and low voltage led lights on adjustable ground spikes for uplighting the retired feature palms
• The client sprayed his own fence using our spray equipment
• The client progressively added new plants over time
• We cleared the site of everything the extension builder had left behind and in the end agreed to re-work and re-turf the frontage to the property and upgrade the path to the new front
• Set up screeding bars to level and rake screened top soil until a flat base...over a new permeable drainage sub-base... to achieve a level lawn for the back garden. We raked in pre-turfing fertiliser and then supply and lay Trident cultivated turf from George Davies Turf Ltd, The programmed night time watering via pop up sprinklers quickly established the new lawn through the summer and particularly during the holiday periods when the clients were abroad.

The design was simply sketched out by hand on paper and finalised when pegged out on site as the client - in this case - commissioned V&B G&H Ltd to both design and build the garden. Hence minimal design fees charged.