The design process
Six stages, and you own what comes out of each one.
Garden design is not one lump of work. It is a sequence, and every stage produces a document you keep and can act on — including if you decide to stop and build it yourself.
01
Initial consultation
Complimentary, on site, no drawings yet.
We walk the garden together and talk properly: how you want to use it, who else uses it and when, what you love and what you would happily never see again, and the practical facts — aspect, soil, drainage, levels, access for machinery, boundaries, what overlooks you. You also get an honest steer on what the site will and will not take. Some gardens want far less work than people expect; a few want considerably more.
You end up with
A clear sense of what is possible, and no obligation.
02
Client brief & quotation
Your garden, written down, with a price against it.
Everything from the consultation goes into a written brief — the uses, the must-haves, the things to avoid, the constraints and any known deadlines. Alongside it comes a quotation for the design work set against that brief. If a measured survey, an arboricultural report or planning advice is going to be needed, it is named here rather than appearing as a surprise later.
You end up with
A written brief and a written quotation before anything is committed.
03
Site survey
Measured, levelled, recorded.
Once the brief is agreed the garden is surveyed properly: dimensions, levels and falls, existing trees and what is worth keeping, services and manholes, soil, aspect and the views in and out. Every drawing after this point is made to that survey. Designing to a rough sketch is how terraces end up a step short and drainage ends up running the wrong way.
You end up with
A scaled, levelled base plan of the garden as it actually is.
04
Design concept
The argument stage, and the cheap one.
The concept sets out the proposed arrangement — zones, circulation, terraces, levels, screening, where the eye is taken and what is deliberately hidden — with reference imagery for materials and mood. This is the stage to push back, move things and change your mind, and on complex or steep sites it is where 3D visualisation earns its keep. We iterate until the layout is genuinely right rather than merely agreed.
You end up with
A concept plan and reference material to react to, and as many rounds as it takes.
05
Master plan
The drawing the garden gets built from.
The agreed concept becomes a scaled master plan: setting out, levels, materials and finishes, structures, drainage, lighting positions and the sequence of work. It is the document the build team prices and works from, which means the quotes you receive are comparable, the details are decided by you rather than invented on site, and the thing that gets built is the thing that was drawn.
You end up with
A scaled master plan and specification, ready to be priced and built.
06
Planting plans
Where the layout becomes a garden.
Planting is designed area by area: evergreen structure first, then the seasonal layers over the top, chosen for your soil, aspect and exposure and for the size they need to be on day one. Stock is hand-selected rather than ordered blind, and once the hard landscaping is finished the planting is set out and planted under supervision. It is then handed over with the aftercare plan.
You end up with
Planting plans, a plant schedule, and planting carried out to them.
And then the build
Because the practice builds as well as draws, stage six is not a handover into thin air. The master plan goes to a settled team of landscapers, bricklayers and building contractors we have worked with for years, and Kate stays on the project — checking setting out, levels and finishes against the drawings as the work goes in, and being the one person you ring when you want to know what is happening this week.
Six weeks after the planting goes in we come back and look at the garden with you, which is early enough to put right anything that is not settling. What happens after that is set out in full on the aftercare calendar.
Start at stage one.
The initial consultation is complimentary and takes place in your garden. Monday to Saturday, 7am – 5pm.