West Berkshire Lifestyle Jul - Aug 2021

o you have grand transformation plans
for your garden but don’t know where to
Dstart? We caught up with the owners of this
amazing redesign, couple Daniel and Katherine, and
found out their motivations for the change and how
they went about the transformation on a budget.
FIRSTLY, CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE
GARDEN BEFORE AND WHY YOU DECIDED TO
TAKE ON THE PROJECT?
Like many people, we were desperate for some
outside space - our flat had a small courtyard but
we wanted somewhere we could entertain and
somewhere for the dogs to enjoy.
The details surrounding actually buying the land
were a bit unusual - it was a plot backing on to the
communal garden of our building and came up
for sale from a previous owner. Despite the state it
was in, we snapped it up, knowing we could make
something special.
THE BEFORE PHOTOS SHOW THE LEVEL
OF WORK NEEDED - WHERE DID YOU EVEN
START?
We realised early on that we would need
professionals in - not only was the site overgrown,
it was steeply sloping and had a strange slab of
hard-standing in the middle. We enlisted the help
of a garden landscaper and together devised a
plan to make a sociable space with lots of room for
plants but also a big deck. The layout was in part
influenced by formal Georgian planting - the garden
backs onto a Regency-era building, so it felt right to
nod to that heritage.
First there was a lot of clearance work - an old
stump had to come out and then years of brambles.
Then it was on to a mix of excavating and filling the
various layers.
BEFORE
The site also had literally tonnes of stones in it, so it
made sense for us to use gabions, the metal cages,
as our retaining walls. We had planned to buy more
stones for facing them, but in the end we didn’t
need to.
We wanted the space to be pretty low
maintenance, so the bottom section is a material
called hoggin, which is a self-binding gravel (it’s
mixed with cement). It creates an even, solid
surface but it is also free draining, which was
important as this was the lower section. It’s really
good value for money too.
WHAT INSPIRED YOUR PLANTING SCHEME?
We were aware that we wanted this to be a good
space for city creatures and insects - the planting
included lots of pollinator-friendly plants to try and
encourage them - in turn we have lots of birds which
is lovely. We filled the raised bed, which was created
with sleepers, with top soil and got to work planting
a mix of plants - we have geraniums, cornflowers,
sedums, geums, sweetpeas, alliums, violas, salvias,
foxgloves, thistles and some Ravenswing cow
20 | www.minervamagazines.co.uk