Connected to Nature

Project value - £30-£40 000

Build Time – 7 weeks

Set within an old gravel pit this garden is an amphitheatre lined with mature oak trees. The house had been beautifully renovated, and the owners now looked to their garden to add interest and connect the house to the surroundings. Designed by Sue Townsend Garden Design this garden certainly achieves this and encompasses a naturalistic planting scheme, a sustainable design and build and features to enhance biodiversity within the garden.

From the back door there are views down the slightly sloped garden, between 2 borders planted in a perennial meadow style,  giving year-round interest and structure with an abundance of colour from spring to early winter. From here your eye is drawn to a large wildlife pond and a further border to the side which contains large silver birch trees to connect the garden to the existing trees on the perimeter giving the garden its permanence. Underplanted with swales of dogwood in winter their colour is the real focal point of the garden.

The clients were keen on a sustainable garden build, so the spoil dug from the pond (around 100 tonnes) was re-used within the garden with the best of the topsoil going to create raised perennial planting beds and the poorer sub soil creating a curved wildflower meadow bank behind the pond. The circular oak deck used as a place to relax and enjoy the wildlife pond was constructed from oak sustainably grown and felled within the UK and the borders were edged with steel edging – long lasting and 100% recyclable at the end of its life. The wildlife pond was built specifically to attract wildlife and features steps to create different depths of water and a gravel beach for invertebrates to use as an entrance, planted with native pond plants which quickly established making in invaluable within the first year. Having built the garden in early 2022 we have continued to manage the space ensuring it fulfils its potential and this tranquil garden boasts some real wildlife highlights including a kingfisher which is regularly seen visiting the pond and Cinnabar caterpillars and moths within the garden.

Photo credit The Suffolk Project