Cotswold Garden

This incredible garden was half-wooded, with two rivers running through the land, creating both water meadows and dry woodland. In contrast, the South-facing approach to the house consisted of a series of terraces within Victorian walled gardens, with some very impressive buttresses.

The brief was for cohesion and a gentler journey from the house and dining area to the garden terraces and wider garden and woodland, and to tie it all together.

To include a larger dining terrace, a natural swimming pool, a lean-to glasshouse, productive growing areas, a den for a fire pit, a boules court, areas just for fun and making a feature of the wooded and water meadow areas.

I saw the shape of the land like a giant unfurling frond and used the principles of the golden ratio to guide the design of huge contour-hugging curves throughout the site. I further illustrated this with huge swathes of Lavender, Artichokes, Asparagus and Sunflowers in the sun drenched walled gardens. I added a zip wire for the kids to whizz down to the lower garden, with a pulley device to carry stuff back up to the house as well.

Then, re-establishing the old Hazel coppice stands down in the woodland areas, and creation of the bones of an old Viking longboat wreck, poking up from the undergrowth and misty water meadow area made from a living Willow sculpture. I also designed a stumpery garden planting scheme for the dark shaded area amongst the ferns, plus, a sunken fire pit with a bespoke Otter design fire barrel made by Wildlight decor.

I also played around with the idea of tying the water to the house with an acequia, running around the terraces and down to feed the natural swimming pool. This could also help circulate the water and keep it oxygenated and clean. Here I am showing the Master Layout Plan, with some of the visuals I created to help with the design, and some of the mood boards I created at the ideas stage. This was a college project and the images used within the mood boards are not my own. They were from various websites including Pinterest and Wikipedia.