L shaped Garden Design

2 years ago

Hi,

I’ve recently moved to a new flat and have my first garden! Since it’s my first time owning a garden I’m Pretty keen to make the most of it! I don’t know too much about gardening and landscape design but I could see myself enjoying it.

My garden is a front garden which wraps around the flat. It has been terrorised by a year of scaffolding so it’s now a totally blank canvas.

There’s no direct access from the flat to the garden unfortunately and I won’t be able to change that because the flat is in a conservation area.

There’s currently two gates from on the street into the garden. One side faces east and the other south. The south facing side is sloped and narrower than the east facing.

I have a few things in mind that might get things started:

I want to sort out the access situation as best I can so I’m thinking of creating a gate as close to the door as possible (scribbled in yellow on my sketch) and removing the other gate.

This probably means levelling this area off to hopefully make it more useable. The suggestion from landscaping companies is to do a ,I tire of digging down and building up using one railway sleeper high at the bottom down by the hedge to create a retaining wall.

I’m not too sure how the steps or gate would look yet - open to suggestions. Sleeper steps might be a little too rustic for the front of the building.

I’m not sure of the best plan for a path which can take someone from the gate and round to the other side of the garden.

The southside stretch is the sunniest part of the garden so it would be an ideal place for two chairs or similar. Would this mean I need a hard surface like paving on this part of the garden?

The existing patio is in the biggest part of the garden which makes sense but it’s also the least sunny part. Maybe a combination of a small setting area on the southside and the larger patio where it currently is would be best. Or maybe there’s somewhere else it could go?

It’s a fairly long narrow garden and the hedge is there for privacy. This creates a lot of shade but I don’t think I could remove it because otherwise it’s direct on to the street.

That’s all before I even get started on planting - I guess that’s another discussion but it would be great to improve the. I’ve from the flat where possible and a lawn/patio/border combination seems prey boring after watching all these gardening shows :D