Urban Jungle Garden Design
The brief
Site: Sheltered courtyard garden of approx. 5 x 6m.
An open-plan ground floor overlooks the garden with floor-length windows running along one side of the garden. Left in the image to the right.
Requirements:
Low-maintenance ‘Urban retreat’ with a jungle feel
Dining and entertaining, ideally two seating areas
A water feature
Space for a pizza oven
Hardy yet tropical planting
Compliments the interior furnishings
Must be achieved with a modest budget.
Outline plan
“Working with Tessa has resulted in a game-changing garden that is both stunning and feels noticeably bigger than the featureless yard it started out as.
We’ve been genuinely impressed with Tessa’s ability to combine imaginative design with a pragmatic approach to maximising usable space, and have already spent hours finding new perspectives to enjoy in our beautiful little courtyard. ”
Design response
A hard-working courtyard garden
This small garden is visible from the house at ground level and overlooked by upstairs bedrooms, meaning, it must look good from all angles.
From above, we see a series of arches radiating from a central pool on the left, and a second area of hard landscaping on the right, suitable for dining and catching the evening light.
Double doors open onto a patio which leads past a floating bench to an outdoor gate. The iroko bench is built into a bespoke corten-steel effect planter and table unit. Matching L-shaped planters offer screening to prevent neighbours from looking directly into the house.
The pool has also been designed bespoke for the scheme. It sits a foot from the living room window and reflects light within the courtyard.
The hard landscaping was specified as Cemfree, a concrete alternative saving up to 85% of the carbon emissions of conventional concrete. The simplicity of the hard standing has been designed to set off the plants’ foliage. Its light colour provides a canvas for dramatic leaf shadows and reflects light within the garden.
A lighting plan was created to be compatible with the Philips Hue scheme used in the home.
Planting Design
Plants were selected for their foliage, with occasional flowers offering the odd pop of colour. While the scheme has a tropical, jungle feel, all plants are suitable for the UK climate on an average year and much of the display will last year-round.
Images feature a freshly planted garden, stay tuned for more as the garden matures. Get in touch to learn more about the plants or features used.
