A 6 House Development

A suite of family homes

Design and build constraints:

Half an acre site with steep slop of 4.5m across site
Clay soil with high water table

Painted Fern was asked to design the front and rear gardens of 6 three bedroom semi-detached, family homes of a development on a former brick works site approaching half an acre in size.

The site was not without its complexities including being surrounded by many mature trees and shrubs casting varying degrees of shade over the plots. This also meant that the gardens did not have external views beyond so the eye needed to find interest within the garden itself. The plots all varied in size and shape but all shared an alkaline clay soil that need improvement before planting could take place. The site itself had a severe slope from the road to the rear of properties 1 and 2.

We opted for a modern style overall to the gardens using simplistic lines. In order to create a cohesive design across all the gardens we used the same, but limited palette of hard landscaping materials, colours and plants. The perception of an increased sense of space was given by placing the design on the diagonal creating a longer sight-line through the garden and achieving some generous pockets of planting. All of the gardens offered multiple places to sit thereby giving different viewpoints. Height to the planting is in the from of standard privet trees, layered underneath with shrubs and perennials. Astroturf was chosen throughout the gardens for ease of maintenance.

Property 1 was one of two show homes for the development at the rear of the site with a wider plot. It had a section of the retaining dry stone wall that runs along the side of the drive which we turned into an area displaying a water feature and offset with planting behind. A mid height drystone wall with integrated seating, planting and decorative panel was designed next to the patio area to offer some division of space to the garden without completely blocking the view. A summer house was constructed to offer multiple areas for entertaining.

Property 2 was the second show home with a side and rear garden. Here we opted to use composite decking for its easy of maintenance and durability. This also had a summer house positioned to the rear of the plot ensuring the garden was usable for entertaining in whatever the weather.

Property 3 was located on the front of the plot with terraced banking to contain a large amount of the gradient within the site. The design on the rear and side garden uses a mixture of paving along with composite decking to prevent any rotting or slipperiness.

Property 4 and 5 were the smallest of the plots and were predominately square in shape. They each had an arbour which appeared to span the plots and give the illusion of borrowing additional space from the neighbouring plot. Decorative panels were chosen to front the retaining walls in order to ground the eye in the garden.

Property 6 had an existing, large and very dominating retaining wall screening it from the entrance and communal driveway. The wall will be covered with gabions. In order to reduce the scale of this wall we brought the height of the deck up creating two generous steps leading up to it. We then added a bespoke pergola fixed to the wall giving the eye a false ceiling and when viewed from the first floor windows of the house, a false floor.

The site was not without its complexities including being surrounded by many mature trees and shrubs casting varying degrees of shade over the plots