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Design,
landscaping and planting
Every project is different and it is not possible or useful
to offer estimates over the telephone. However, a firm quotation in writing is always supplied after the first visit. The
design fee includes concept designs, masterplan and planting plan, site survey (unless a particularly large or awkward plot
where the services of a professional surveyor will be required and will be priced separately) and planting advice notes.
To ensure satisfaction I am available to
monitor the installation of hard landscaping. My landscaping associates work in tandem with Heather's Gardens but there
is no financial link between the businesses so clients can rest assured that their interests are paramount. Once the
landscape framework is complete, the plants will be sourced, supplied and arranged on site to best effect. Clients will benefit
from a considerable saving compared with normal retail prices because of my contacts within the horticultural industry.
Easy-to-understand maintenance guidance is provided to help with care
of the new garden. I am always happy to return to advise on issues such as long-term
maintenance and the continuing development of the garden.
The Design Process
1. Visit clients to discuss ideas, favourite materials and plants, likes
and dislikes, suggestions and information on design for hardscape and softscape. 20% deposit required before any design work begins. 2. Site survey, soil analysis, measurements, photos and levels taken. 3. Return with first draft plans showing hardscape, lawns, planting
and seating areas. (also, if required, ponds, pergolas, arbours, statuary, planting containers, sculptures and ironwork).
Discuss, select and make amendments. 4. Third
visit to present masterplan, which will be drawn with watercolours. This gives a complete picture of materials for hard landscaping
and will show quantity and colour of plants and all other features. Full
payment of outstanding balance required on presentation of masterplan. 5.
Advice sheets are presented in a folder listing all plants with information on their origin, appearance, eventual size and
care advice, such as pruning and feeding notes.
| The Trampoline Garden Before Work Commenced |
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| The Trampoline Garden Completed |
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| Curvy Path of Silver-Grey Granite setts |
Above: This garden design has five distinct
areas:
A formal garden adjacent to the house with five feature ornamental squares, each
edged with strips of stoneware tile. Reclaimed tudor bricks are to be used to form the outer section of square. The centre
of each square will have a mosaic design using pebbles. The central square will have the family's name and date set
into the pebble mosaic.
A tropical/fun garden consisting of five paved circles, (two circles will have
motion-sensitive water jets) connected by a network of paths.
A contemporary garden with sawn-cut, white
polished limestone paving and black square granite setts.
A mediterranean garden.
A naturalistic grass
garden with timber board walks, two channels of water, round chestnut posts to be installed, at varying heights, to form a
curve, and a seating area of grey parquet paving behind a feature wall using sawn-cut natural stone built with
recesses for displaying candles. Raking tile courses are to be used in the design. .
| Heather can source features for the garden |
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All the plans and photos used in this website are from
projects that Heather's Gardens have designed. Heather also supervised the construction and planting of these gardens
to final completion. (except for A Romantic Topiary Garden where the hard-landscaping was already in place)
Below:
A Small
Town Garden
A small garden designed for flexible outdoor entertaining. The rotary washing line can be removed
to provide an additional seating area for table and chairs. Heather's signature planting includes Artemisia ludoviciana
'Valerie Finnis'.
| A Romantic Topiary Garden |
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| The grass stipa tenuissima and geranium 'Brookside |
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Planting (requiring separate costing) I can source, select and arrange delivery of plants; supervise planting to completion
of project; organise the supply and installation of irrigation and lighting systems. Plant Warranty Only available
if Heather's Gardens has supplied and planted the stock. I guarantee that all plants will be healthy when planted. Responsibility cannot be accepted for loss after
planting because subsequent site conditions are beyond my control. The client must maintain the site properly. However,
provided the planting has been maintained in accordance with the advice notes, consideration will be given to replacement
of any material found to be defective during the first growing season if notified by the client in writing and inspected by
Heather's Gardens.
| A planting combination of grasses and sea hollies |
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Watercolour Masterplans
Designs for long, narrow gardens and small challenging spaces.
All plans and drawings are hand-drawn by Heather using pencil, black
ink and watercolour. Plans are drawn to scale showing hard and soft landscaping and all other features. Heather also produces
plans to scale, in black ink for the preliminary/concept plan and for the landscaper's plan with detailed dimensions.
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The Watercolour Masterplan for 'a garden for pottering'
TV garden make-over programmes have given unrealistic estimates of the total cost
of creating a new garden. Many landscape contractors costs are 50% materials and 50% labour, but often on television programmes
there is no allowance for the labour cost.
Other costs that are often overlooked are a planting plan which requires
a good knowledge of plants and their suitability and last of all the garden design fee.
| Heather's Gardens: Design Landscaping Planting |
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| Client's brief requested several seating areas |
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| Heather can source special materials |
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| 'Dragonfly' and 'Butterfly' feature circles |
Heather likes the freedom of drawing by hand.
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| Family Garden Plan: Pool Garden Completed |
| Planting plan for a small border |
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A Family Garden including an ornamental
vegetable parterre
This design has three distinct areas. The planting will provide the contrast
essential to each area. The large lawn will be an area for play and relaxation while the surrounding planting will give a
screen to the drive. There will be repeat planting of ornamental shrubs, tall and low-growing perennials and grasses all the
way along the drive to give unity to the design.
Trellis screens, painted a 'willowy green' shade, are used throughout
the garden.
The vegetable parterre garden has four straight paths providing a formal layout but the planting of veg
and ornamental perennials will make a soft contrast. The dividing trellis screens will give a feeling of enclosure. The
planting here will be a visual contrast to the neighbouring lawn garden near the house.
| The preliminary plan |
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| Heather's Gardens: Garden Design, Landscaping and Planting Maidstone Kent |
| The garden one year after planting |
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| A Large Family Garden |
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| A description of the garden follows |
To help clients visualise their new garden, Heather includes
a detailed description, with the master plan, of how a new garden will eventually look.
The following
is part of a description for a client, which included detailed information about planting, hard-landscaping, features,
and structures within the garden.
The transition from the formal garden to the rest of
the garden is provided by two winding paths that lead from the last ornamental square.When looking from the house straight
up the central path to the last square, two beautiful standard, silver weeping pears can be seen. They flank an area for siting
a sculpture or statue, an important focal point from the house. This feature can be uplit.
This garden provides
two pictures; one for winter and one for summer. In winter, the solid green topiary shapes will give the garden structure
and colour. In summer, grasses, colourful perennials and ground cover will give an entirely different picture, with splashes
of colour and movement in the grasses. The golden oat grass, stipa gigantea will reach six feet in a season, providing an
airy haze mixed with tall verbena bonariensis.Also offering height and vibrant colour are yellow achillea 'cloth of gold'
and bright scarlet 'lucifer'.
Near the front of the garden yet more colour is provided by the day lily, hemerocallis,
and brick-red and white penstemons. At the central path, running horizontally towards the semi-circular seating areas, pink
and cream paeonias mixed with nepeta, also known as cat mint, and billowing geraniums will soften the paths edges.
The tropical garden is made of a network of five natural stone circles with connecting paths. Each circle has a feature
of either marbles, pebbles or broken ceramics. Two also have motion-sensitive water fountains.
Visitors will discover
the fun/tropical garden by entering through tall planting, which once fully grown will hide what is ahead. Screens of bamboo
help to disguise the route.
Each circle will have fibre optic white lights or small coloured lights fitted
into the circle base. Light sticks would be good placed in the tall planting.
As requested, there is a water
feature near the tropical hut. One suggestion is a large terracotta urn or ginger jar with a pump inside. The water would
gently trickle down the sides with a collection of cobbles and pebbles at its base. This is a very simple idea but always
effective and child friendly.
When leaving the tropical garden, via an avenue of pear trees, you come to the contemporary
garden. This garden will be breathtaking with its smooth contemporary lines, quiet masculinity and contemplative
Japanesesque style. The oriental theme is enforced by two large lime-green acers planted either in containers or in the
ground.
Japanese holly, cloud topiary trained trees and box globes, planted in the two central beds with a mulch
of Japanese green pebbles, complete the design. The paving is polished white limestone, sawn cut, to give a contemporary
style. In the centre of the garden is a limestone bench. A feature gate, perhaps in an oriental style, will complement the
design.
Boundary planting provides colour and interest. Viburnum opulus, the guelder rose, gives all year interest,
lace-cap flowers, maple-shaped leaves and glossy bright red berries, glorious autumn colour with leaves turning orange and
red. Rosa glauca has grey-blue stems that contrast with the pretty pink blooms. There are two sambucus racemosa 'sutherland's
gold' on the boundary. This is the golden-leaved elder, a beautiful shrub with delicate filigree foliage and red berries.
Four viburnum 'Eve Price' provide flowers in winter and an evergreen foil to highlight other plants. Mahonia 'Lionel
Fortesque' is an excellent evergreen shrub with dramatic shaped leaves. It benefits from yellow flowers in winter and
early spring, followed by berries beloved by the birds.
The grass garden has as a centrepiece a large grouping
of amemathele lessoniana called pheasant grass. This is a wonderful evergreen grass that sways in a breeze to create movement.
A stonemarket circle in the centre with a dragonfly detail has timber boardwalks radiating from its outer ring.
The design has been created to provide many areas of interest just waiting to be discovered. Several seating areas
enable the plants and structural features to be viewed from different aspects within the garden. It is intended to be timeless
and elegant while providing lots of excitement for this family, who I hope will appreciate and enjoy it for many years to
come.
By Heather Ritter
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