Cornford Crescent
Press: https://issuu.com/eljays44/docs/january_2021
Designer
Mark Rogers, Hortus Collective
Web: www.hortuscollective.co.uk
Insta: @hortus_collective
The Brief
When our clients moved into the new property, the lawned garden lacked interest and didn’t match the quality of the place. They wanted an immersive planted garden in which they could entertain friends and family and enjoy the unrestricted views over the South Downs.
Our clients chose Mark Rogers of Hortus Collective to design the space for his ability to work sensitively with the site and respond to the character of the landscape through materiality, detail, and planting.
Our Role
Our ability to construct the garden in a way that echoed the values of Hortus Collective as a studio made The Garden Landscapers a natural choice to help realise the vision. By nurturing a close relationship with the designer, the clients, and the space, we were able to understand the design intent and use our creative eye on the ground to help capture important details.
Challenges we overcame
Beast from the East descended with the second phase of construction underway, and we found ourselves knee deep in snow filled trenches and below freezing temperatures as the gusts flew through from the hills of the South Downs.
We took great care navigating unprecedented wet weather throughout the winter to ensure we protected the soil structure as much as possible. This demonstrated our accountability for the health of the gardens and environments we are directly responsible for.
Highlights
The skill and attention to detail required to form the curved steps, with a brick on end as a riser and creasing tile on edge infill the tread.
Environmental Credentials:
The perennial meadow inspired planting transformed a baron space into a biodiverse garden, teeming with life and full of food for pollinators. The three resilient multi-stem Hawthorn trees planted were inspired by the landscape and their fleshy red fruit provide food for birds such as Thrushes, Blackbirds and Finches.
The brick paving was laid on a sharp sand bed to a low impact metal edge that removed the need for cement and provided a sustainable drainage system for water to pass through into the soil. Laying brick pavers this way enables moss to inhabit the kiln-dried sand joints, offering a microhabitat for insects to live, lay their eggs and hunt for food.
What the client said
The Garden Landscapers came to work on our virgin garden in a new property during 2018. They turned our sloping field-like terrain into the most interesting multi-levelled spaces you could imagine. Stuart’s eye for details, his precision work by machine or by hand, his love of his art, all combined to create a magical place. When water issues came to light early on, his solution of a branched drainage system meant digging deep and connecting carefully with a field ditch – it was brilliant. He plans carefully and sees things from every angle whether that be relationship with the neighbouring farmer or how things will look from the kitchen window.
It was a pleasure to have The Garden Landscapers around, although we didn’t see much of them when their focus was always to complete the planned tasks for each day. They worked every moment they had committed and kept us informed of any changes caused by weather. It was obvious to us that The Garden Landscapers are driven by their values, and we were the delighted beneficiaries.
We wholeheartedly recommend them for any future project they undertake.
