The purpose of the garden site survey -

• Get an accurate idea of where the house is in relation to all the other parts of the garden
• Determine your boundaries both to your garden and of any ground that may be designated for an alternative use e.g. for agricultural purposes.
• Note the position of any trees or significant plants that you may like to keep or that must be removed
• Note the location of all utility points including drains and manholes, overhead cables and electricity poles, rainwater pipes and surface water drains and finally any satellite dish.
• Find the location of all windows, doors and constituent parts of the house which may determine the position of features – both planting and hard landscape – in your new garden.
• Determine the location of all existing outbuildings, green houses and sheds
• Identify good and bad views
• Find the geographical orientation, sunny spots and shady areas

Tools of the trade

• A compass
• A 30 metre tape measure
• An assistant to hold the tape measure
• A digital camera – not essential but very useful
• Pencil paper and ruler

Later on you will need a drawing compass with extension, A3 or larger paper and a scale rule.

Measuring The Garden

Running Dimensions

Use a tape measure to take a series of consecutive measurements along a straight line. You might use this to measure up the house, determining the insertion points for windows, doors, drain pipes etc.

Triangulation

Using the tape to measure the distance between a given object e.g a tree or boundary corner and two fixed points e,g the corners of the building.

Off set measurements- used to measure curves on eg driveways and borders.

Establish a base line reasonably close to the curve you wish to measure. Establish the location of the beginning and end have been determined by triangulated measurements. The divide the base line into 1 metre lengths. Now take measurements at right angles to the base line to the curve.

Accuracy 

Measurements of the building should be accurate to 50mm horizontally and 10mm vertically. Sometimes it is difficult to achieve this level of accuracy in measuring a garden due to obstructions.

If you are measuring on a slope then be careful to hold the tape horizontal or your measurements will be inaccurate.

If  all of this seems to be a hassle then call in a landscaping design professional!   Alternatively if your garden is over a third of an acre and or the ground slopes more than a metre or two contact Ian Humby Chartered Surveyors 012428752 861.

Step 1 – Know the Planning Consents and Restrictions

Whether you are in the town or country, before planning a garden from scratch you may need to apply for planning consents before you make alterations to the hardlandscape of your garden. In general if your building is not listed and you are not in a conservation area then you are free to design your garden area as you want with the following provisos:

No wall, trellis or garden fence should exceed 1 metre in height if it is adjacent to the road or 2 metres elsewhere in your garden. Should you wish to exceed this height then you will have to apply for planning permission to your local district council.

While new buildings or extensions of your existing building are subject to planning restrictions and would not normally be considered a part of planning your Garden Design, you are at liberty to build a garden shed or a greenhouse in your garden up to 4 metres high at the ridge or 3 metres at the roof line without planning permission. Swimming pools and tennis courts are generally exempt from planning permission although you may need to get consent for draining a pool.

However if your house is listed, then beware. Any alteration to the main building, outbuildings, wall or gates will need Listed Building Consent. This includes any structure that is joined to the building such as a pergola.

Planning Hardlandscaping in Your Garden Design

There are also restrictions as to the disposal of surface water from patios and hardlandscaping. This cannot be discharged into an existing sewer without consent. Increasingly local councils are demanding the use of permeable surfaces, particularly at the front of town gardens.

Conservation area authorities will also have their own regulations as to what types of materials can be used for hardlandscaping. There will also be rules regarding what trees can be taken down or even pruned without permission.

Party walls and the regulations covering them are also convoluted. You should consult the Party Wall Act 1996 if you need make alterations to a garden wall or concrete fence which stands astride a boundary. In general you will need to give two months notice of your intention. However permission cannot be unreasonably withheld. Make sure you get consent in writing from neighbours before making changes to a shared boundary wall.

All changes of access to classified roads or highways will need planning permission.

So the short answer is: before you start designing and planning a garden check with your local authority as to what rules apply and what applications for consent are needed.

seanmills+associates garden design offers a full design service including obtaining the necessary planning consents when planning and designing gardens.

When considering the garden designer’s ideas for your garden, try to evaluate how much maintenance will be required. Lawns and veg. gardens are particularly high maintenance. Can you take a ride on mower around the lawns?

Do all parts of the garden connect? There should be a sense of passage around the garden. It’s pointless owning a part of the garden that you never visit.

If your property is listed and/or it’s in a conservation area, choose a designer who has had experience dealing with planning authorities.

Back in 1620, Elmtree Farm, in the hamlet of Wortley was reputedly owned by one Stephen Hopkins who, knowing a thing or two about the cost of maintaining a not-so-soon to be listed homestead, forsook his home and sailed off to America aboard The Mayflower. Today, the farm is split into two properties, each owned by designers, and both passionate about their garden, both working from home and each with a young family – but here the similarities end.

Today the original property has been divided into two parts. The barns are now owned by one of the country’s leading graphic designers and as one might expect have been renovated and finished to be the very apotheosis of modern living – spacious, open plan and thoroughly minimalist.

The architect left the shell of the barns as they were. However the floors are polished concrete, the openings are filled with galvanised Crittal Windows and the interior woodwork is almost all plywood. So true to Modernist design philosophy, functionality is supreme.

The spirit of Modernism is reflected in the design of the garden. The designer’s solution was to create a series of screened garden ‘rooms’ each with a distinct feel and separate function: inner courtyard, cutting garden, entertainment and sunbathing area, orchard and children’s area. Of these rooms the most successful is undoubtedly the courtyard, which is bordered on one side by the sitting-room, on another by the dining-room and on the third side by the guest bedrooms.

The 12 foot by 5 foot ‘diving board’ in black granite which links the doorway from the sitting room to the courtyard serves as an entertaining terrace and links the central rill to the main house. With the rectangular, randomly placed beds filled with Campanula carpatica ‘Jewel’ the courtyard area might almost be a homage to Piet Mondrian and the black and grey stonework in the horizontal plain are sharply contrasted with the vertical, stark, white trunks of the four Betula jackemontii ‘Jermyns’.

Bubble fountains in the rill afford movement and the sound of water. Says the owner, “both the sitting room and the dining room give onto the courtyard and, as we don’t draw curtains in the evening the view to the courtyard must be as good by night as it is by day. So lighting was a significant part of the design.”

The structure of the rest of the garden is defined by an array of pleached, espaliered and conventional hedges. In addition, the stones and rubble that came out of the farmyard have been placed in gabions and turfed to make circular bunds around the sunbathing area, ensuring privacy. Mowing the bunds is hard work. Even with a Flymo it is difficult not to scalp the grass on the lip of the mound.

Planting has been restricted to about 10 species of perennials and shrubs. Repetition of the same plants at different points around the garden gives a rhythm and sense of orderliness.

Just a few metres down the slope from the barn conversion, stands the original farmhouse, which was completely dilapidated when the author’s family took it over. We wanted to preserve the historical feel of the house particularly as the layout had remained unchanged for at least the last 250 years.

When it came to the garden, I wanted to divide the property into three parts, each third having a different feel to it. The courtyard or entertaining area needed to lead off the kitchen and have a secure, private feeling to it in spite of it being the main entrance to the house and being bordered on the one side by the driveway. At the same time having a young son meant a sports lawn was obligatory. Finally we wanted to have a ‘Sean Mills Garden Design(P.G. Dip Garden Design).
For a professional opinion or help with your garden contact sean mills+associates garden design

Gardeners Christmas

If you have a keen gardener in your family why not make their Christmas and buy them a special present.  Here are our top ten Christmas gardening presents.

White Christmas Plants – Download this planting plan for a white border. By repeating the plan you can build up a big border area and the repetition will give rhythm and structure to the border. Plants can be sourced in small numbers from the web or call me, Sean Mills on 01453 521 421 or sean@millsandassociates.co.uk  for bigger projects. I can save you money by using trade suppliers

A Sneeboer bulb planter – £54 from Harrods. For anyone wanting to naturalise bulbs this is the tool for you. It may be expensive but this tool comes complete without any obsolecence factor!

Whichford Planters - Guaranteed frost proof for 10 years. Made by British craftsmen to the highest standards.

Bare Root Trees- winter is the time to plant bare-root trees, which is the most cost effective way to buy trees. See http://www.weasdale.com/ for a nursery with an excellent range.

Christopher Lloyd “Cuttings, A Year in the Garden with Christopher Lloyd” -£7.68 from Amazon. A compilation of his articles for the Saturday Guardian, which are witty, insightful and on occasion  well…cutting.

A Wormery – from £22.99 to £75.99. If, like me, you forget to put the vegetable scraps  on the compost  heap until they are a foul, smelly mess then this is  for you. A wormery will cope with all food scraps and the sealed top keeps in the smell. 

A Bird Box –An ideal present for children as well as adults. Different species prefer different designs and this website has an excellent range  from £15 to £32  from www.nestbox.co.uk.

Garden Sculpture by Peter Hayes. If you have a contemporary garden you could be looking for a suitable sculpture. Peter Hayes has a unmistakable style and his work is highly collectable. He accepts commissions. See www.peterhayes-ceramics.uk.com.

Flexi- Tie at 1.49 from www.gardenoptions.com this makes a great stocking filler.

A Garden Design by sean mills+associates. See www.seanmills.co.uk for examples of our work. From simple planting plans to fully built gardens we guarantee to provide the best Christmas present ever!