Starting from a blank plot

New-build gardens start from nothing. A levelled rectangle, a new fence and no history to work with. It is the most daunting brief a client can be handed, and quietly the best opportunity, because every single decision is still open.

Shape came first. A sweeping curve of sandstone paving draws you out of the house and around the lawn, breaking up the rectangle so the garden stops reading as a plot and starts reading as a series of spaces to move between.

A timber pergola gives instant height while everything else establishes. The borders are laid out generously and planted close, so they knit together within two or three seasons rather than sitting as dots in bare soil, which is the usual fate of a new garden.