Often with new build properties, the gardens are left as a completely blank canvas and can sometimes feel like an afterthought. Tiny patios immediately outside the house, an expanse of lawn, and not much else. While this means you can put your own stamp on them, it can sometimes be very hard to know where to start. How can you inject some personality into the garden, and create a space you want to spend time in?
When designing gardens, often the existing plants and statement features are the place the start… perhaps there’s a beautiful, mature tree halfway down the garden, or an ornamental water feature to work around. Features such as these can inform the new design; guiding what style of planting to go for, which views to frame and where to divide the garden into sections. But in a garden without any features, where should you start? Well, that’s where we come in! Using our expertise as garden designers, we can make suggestions and share ideas about what will work in the space to suit your needs and lifestyle.
It’s important not just to identify whether you want to sunbathe in the garden or not, you really need to look at your lifestyle and use of the space, and think about how you envisage it developing over the years. The design of your garden then needs to enable that. Having your garden designed is an investment, and so it’s very important to us that we design a space for you that will work not only for the next few years, but well into the future too.
One of our biggest bugbears with new build gardens is the patio. They are so often a stingy strip of paving across the back of the house, irrelevant of where the light is in the garden. We believe the seating areas in the garden should be places to really enjoy being in, and the best spot is rarely the narrow belt right next to the house. You want to feel a sense of spaciousness and have the option to get a different perspective on your garden.
Below you can see pictured one of our garden designs in Oxted. This end of plot new build was blessed with two existing apple trees but not much else. Our clients had already (sensibly!) extended the patio by the house, however wanted to make use of the whole garden. We are big fans of multiple areas in a garden so that you can have sunny and shady spots to use at different times of day, as well as spaces to entertain in, relax in and feel ensconced in. We created two extra seating spots alongside adding lots of beautiful plants. The smaller of the two new seating areas is surrounded by trees and a perfect place for a morning coffee in the sunshine.
The larger is a great space for entertaining away from the house. Using a curved pathway, we have made a journey through the garden to the new seating spots, so that the beautiful planting can be enjoyed, and the busyness of day-to-day life slowed for a short while as you meander through the space.
The same theory can be applied to smaller gardens too. Just because the overall size is smaller, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have multiple places to use in the garden, if possible.
For one of our Sevenoaks garden design clients, we upgraded the developer’s choice of paving to create a beautiful patio area with enough space for both cooking and dining, as well as creating a second seating area with a bespoke, locally crafted bench with fire pit. This offers a choice of seating places for the family who all enjoy using the garden, with the fire pit seating being somewhere to retire to after a meal on the other patio.
Another design choice that is very effective in blank canvas gardens is to add height. Without mature trees and shrubs, a garden can feel quite open, and you can feel on show when you’re in it. Adding height, be that through trees or structures, not only adds privacy and interest, but it also gives an overall feeling of enclosure and submersion in your garden. Structures can be softened with considered planting, and more mature trees can be chosen to give instant height.
In one of our Sevenoaks garden designs, we have used a row of trees to break up a rather imposing fence at the back of the garden. It is especially tall due to a level change in the land and so softening and disguising it with the trees combined with climbers on the fence makes it far less domineering and creates a cosy feel to the garden. As the trees mature, they will cover more of the fence and building behind.
We have added in a row of beautiful trees along the boundary of our Oxted garden design that will help disguise the other houses, which can also be a common feature of new build houses. We chose trees which offered year-round interest, with beautiful blossom, lush green foliage and beautiful autumn colour. As they mature, the will fill out to provide a screen above the fence line to help disguise the surrounding houses.
Adding height within the garden stops your eyes from searching for somewhere to rest when looking around. It draws the attention in to the garden, making it a much more relaxing and private-feeling space to spend time in.
Our Sevenoaks garden design clients wanted a space to work out in their garden too. In a relatively small plot that we had already added two seating areas and a trampoline to, we needed to be smart about how we incorporated this. We designed a multi-purpose pergola that not only holds a punch bag and other gym equipment, but also adds height to the garden. From a design perspective, this was an important addition for the garden. It instantly makes it feel more mature and inviting by adding height and therefore the feeling of being enveloped in the garden, and it helps with not being too overlooked by neighbouring houses as well. It is a highly practical space that meets our client’s needs as well as adding interest and privacy to the garden. Being able to use this space as a workout area is great, and we also fitted a swinging seat so that it can double up as a place to relax as well.
We hope you have found this a useful insight into some of the design considerations we make when working on new build gardens. If you would like to transform your new build garden design, we’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch here.
Gardens by Anna Butterfield offer professional garden and planting design across London and the South East.
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