The brief from the owners of this contemporary London home was to create a private garden more reminiscent of the country than a modern urban space. The site was complicated. Screening was badly needed to create privacy from the row of houses to one side. On another boundary a large façade dominated. On the other side large trees created a block which needed to be balanced, and cast dappled shade. Provision needed to be made for a lawn and play equipment, a shed and to incorporate stairs leading into the garden.

The design set out to draw the eye down through the garden and out into the wider landscape only where there were open views. A staggered row of Holm Oak create privacy from the houses and in time will join to create an attractive hedge on stilts. Two olive trees sit in large Urbis planters on the terrace to provide additional privacy and large whitebeam and hawthorn have been planted to give additional screening and connect to street trees in the wider landscape. In areas of the garden where beds were impossible to site, evergreen scented climbers grow in long Urbis planters to screen the fence and create a green wall.

The new lawn, edged in York stone to echo the sunny terrace, meanders through the garden carefully directing the eye. The planting is young but in time will reinforce the shape of the lawn with undulating shapes and bring colour and change through the seasons. The fences will disappear behind jasmine, ceanothus, roses and clematis.