We are putting the finishing touches to a design in Banstead for a naturalistic, Nordic style garden with a wildlife pond and lots of textural planting including multi-stem birch trees; it’s a blank canvas at the moment:
Drawing up the design in 3D really helps to visualise it. Here’s a view as it will be seen from the house:
The design is eco-friendly as much as possible, with minimal concrete to be used. It’s generally light on hard landscaping materials, the planting providing much of the interest and structure.
‘Parasol’ or ‘roof-trained’ standard trees will help to shade the house and patio, lowering the temperature in hot summers. A louvred overhead canopy structure is also being considered.
A wildlife pond with seating will be the main focal point, to be built using locally sourced Horsham stone https://www.horshamstone.co.uk:
An area at the bottom of the garden is cooled from the surrounding tall leylandii trees in the summer and is a lovely spot for views of the setting sun in the evening:
Near the house will be a rusty (corten) coloured water feature from www.urbisdesign.co.uk:
Paths will sinew through the garden to add interest and accessibility to all areas, including to a shed and compost box:
As the area under the large neighbouring Leylandii is so dry and shady, this will be used for nature friendly logpiles, wildflowers and shaped mounds of skimmed turf, the by- product of creating the new borders.
A view from the house of the pond, birch trees and swathes of naturalistic planting:
It’s an exciting project in the making and I’ll look forward to providing an update as it progresses!