A garden that asks for nothing.
A new-build plot in Warsash, taken from bare ground to a finished garden front and back. Large-format porcelain, an artificial lawn framed in charcoal, sleeper-built planting and a lit terrace for the evenings. Built for two people who wanted the upkeep designed out, not promised away. Three weeks, start to finish.
The brief.
A new-build home in Warsash, handed over with the garden left raw. Developer turf laid thin over rubble, a bare fence line at the back, and a front plot of loose gravel and weeds. Nothing tying the plot together.
The owners were clear from the first visit. They wanted a garden they could use, not one they had to look after. Somewhere to sit out in the evening, with the maintenance designed out rather than promised away.
What we built.
The whole rear was stripped back and rebuilt on a proper sub-base. Large-format porcelain wraps the garden as a single surface, laid level to the back doors and squared to the boundaries. Across the centre, an artificial lawn sits flush in the paving, framed on every side by a darker charcoal border course so the green reads as a deliberate panel, not an afterthought.
Along the boundary, a raised bed built from new oak sleepers holds the only planting that earns its place here: phormium, clipped evergreens and a few structural shrubs that keep their shape through winter. The fence was dressed back in a quiet grey, and recessed lighting takes the terrace into the evening without floodlighting the neighbours.
At the front, the weeds and loose gravel gave way to a clean silver-gravel bed edged in a curved sett course, planted with lavender, grasses and a pair of potted standards either side of the door. Nothing on this garden needs mowing, watering or a weekend given over to it. It still reads as a designed space, not a paved one. Three weeks on site, front and back, start to finish.
