Terraced house in Cambridge
Terraced house in Cambridge
A terraced house in a busy area of Cambridge with a small back garden of only 30 square meters sank to the basement level and shaded by the house and a very tall brick wall dividing the garden from the next-door garden. The only access to the garden was through the house and then the basement.
The brief
The garden was still in its original status, completely covered with shingles and concrete slabs. The clients wanted to revitalise the garden with lushing vegetation and have an area for a small table and barbeque where they could walk barefoot. The presence of a dog which could use the garden sometimes required a surface easy to clean for which we used resin bound gravel.
The area of the garden was split in half flower bed and half patio. To the patio was given a rounded, irregular shape, and two separated “step stones” were added to locate the barbeque and bridge from the steps to the patio. The existing slabs were crushed and together with the shingles were used for the patio’s subbase on which the resin bound gravel was laid. This allowed to contain the budget and reduce pollution to zero. The tall wall was wired with stainless steel wires to form a frame for Clematis montana. For the planting around the patio was chosen a mix of evergreen plants (e.g., Luzula nivea, ferns, Ajuga reptans) and semi-evergreen and deciduous shrubs (e.g., Erigeron karviskianum, Cornus sibirica, Hydrangea paniculata). Bulbs of daffodils were planted randomly for an early flowering opening the season of a continuous emerging of new flowers and new colours from February to the end of autumn and through winter with the bright red of Cornus stems.
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