A garden, composed.
A new-build plot resolved into two terraces and a connecting stepping path, bounded by sleeper raised beds. Recessed LED at the lawn perimeter and fence-panel uplighters take the garden into the evening.
The brief.
The plot was a new-build hand-over: developer-grade lawn from fence to fence, no defined zones, no working surfaces, fences too tall for the plot to feel intimate. The brief from the homeowners was clear — somewhere to host that didn't feel like a sprawl, somewhere to plant without losing all the lawn, and a way to make the garden usable into the evenings during the months when daylight runs out at five.
The plot dimensions were generous but undefined. The work needed to give it shape.
What we built.
We resolved the garden into two outdoor rooms connected by a stepping-stone path. The principal terrace, closer to the house, was laid in large-format porcelain — the everyday entertaining surface. The secondary zone toward the rear of the plot was set back, more contained, framed for quieter use. Between them, a path of mixed-size sandstone slabs set into a bed of silver granite chippings, edged in charcoal block setts to hold the line clean.
Either side of the path, two pressure-treated sleeper raised beds — one long run against the rear fence, one perpendicular at the corner forming an L-shape. Lined and drained, capped at the joinery, ready for planting that earns its place against the architecture rather than competing with it.
The lawn was relaid central between the two terraces, with recessed LED strip lighting running the full perimeter under the sleeper-bed cap. Fence-panel uplighters every other panel pick the boundary up at dusk. The result is a garden that works in daylight as a clean composition of stone, gravel, timber and lawn — and becomes a different garden entirely after sunset.
