Sunny Narrow Greenwich Garden

Greenwich, London

The Brief

The starting point for this garden was a new sitting area for eight at the rear, to replace the makeshift spot the clients had put together over an old concrete shed base. Alongside that sat a fairly full list: a BBQ, dining for six, a new shed, a mini greenhouse, a vegetable planter, a herb garden, and a compost bin. Most importantly, they wanted the pebbles gone from the tree pits so that the garden could feel fully and abundantly planted.

The Design

The site had good bones already. Mature trees, an espalier pear, a wisteria, a climbing rose, and a fruiting passion flower by the house were all worth keeping, and the landscaper took care to retain them. But the garden itself felt jumbled, nothing quite lined up, and the narrow strips of lawn either side of a central pergola were creating work rather than joy.

The new layout is built around alignment. The dining table now sits neatly between two mature trees, with a small pond enhancing that line, and in the other direction it lines up with both the existing steps and the new steps up to a decked sitting area. The pond also catches the eye from the kitchen doors, with the vegetable planter sitting in line with it. Out went the bits of lawn and pergola that clashed with the mature olive tree and in came a new oak vegetable planter with a bespoke oak bench opposite, surrounded by colourful perennials and evergreen shrubs in a deep planting bed.

The existing Yorkstone paving and brick pavers stayed too, cleaned, regrouted, and shifted slightly where the new layout needed it, and an old pile of broken Yorkstone became a planted path. Between the planting we kept and the materials we reused, the garden already sat comfortably next to the Victorian house, even when the build was newly finished.

Now

As the planting matures this will continue to be a colourful and abundant garden, but the alignments underneath it all will always lend a sense of calm to the space. It's always amazing too how quickly adding planting and water brings wildlife into the garden - tadpoles arrived in the tiny new pond within a couple of weeks!