David Keegans Garden Design Blog: Garden Design Project in Leyland, Lancashire, By David Keegan Garden Design

Thursday, 19 December 2013

Garden Design Project in Leyland, Lancashire, By David Keegan Garden Design

Garden Design in Leyland Lancashire

This was a very exciting project as it required a complete re-design to the front and rear gardens. Whilst the interior of the client’s house was fully modernised the garden was very much stuck in a 1980's time-warp. Both the front and rear gardens were full of the ubiquitous conifers one seems to find everywhere and which i personally loath. So a word of advice to those that might please do not waste time and money planting Leyland type conifers as they are ugly and will only become visually uglier with time. In their mature state they will take up far too much space in any garden and will come to resemble a green concrete wall.

The clients wanted a garden that would reflect and be in keeping with the contemporary

Interior of the house. At the time of my fist visit the garage was located to the rear of the property and they also parked their cars to the rear of the house. This meant the front entrance was rarely used and the large front garden again rarely used. The front lawn also dropped off from the house to boundary to a depth of at least 1 meter and was in a very poor state. Due to the peculiar location of the front entrance the existing path to door was located to the side wall of the house. This did nothing to make either prominence of the entrance or a feeling of welcome. Equally the owners had inherited what i can only describe as the largest area of impressed concrete i have come across on any project.

Again i am baffled as to the reason that anyone would choose this material for a drive when natural stone is so readily available. Given the sheer square meters of it in this project it was not economically viable to remove all but it is now greatly reduced and is blended into the new driveway and side garden utility area. The drop to the front garden came in very handy for recycling site waste and helped to form a new level area for a hex drain gravel drive. This also allowed me to re-position the path to the front door and by use of pattern and increased footprint to put the entrance into context making it a more appealing aspect.

This was further reinforced with the addition of a newly formed stone clan curved step to the front door which based on the curve of the existing overhead brick canopy. Combined these details now create a more balanced and harmonious approach to the house whilst making good use of the garden as a good sized driveway. Moving the parking to the front also allowed me to suggest we turn the rear garage into a new garden room. This area to the side of the house is now gated to the front and screened to the rear paving an excellent space for a garden shed and wheelie bins thus making use of valuable additional garden space. To my mins far too often these side area of house are overlooked and therefore a wasted resource.

Equally the large conifers to the rear boundary were removed along with the impressed concrete driveway a shed and a large Wendy house. The pictures below will tell the rest of the story.

An updated post on the project can be found by clicking this link.