This quaint cottage in Braughing had recently been tastefully renovated by its new owners with a modern glass cube added with views up the garden. My brief was to redesign the layout of the garden, introduce a studio and widen planting beds while keeping a usable lawn. The studio formed the main focal point though in time the shrubs will mask some of the building softening the view and increasing privacy between the main building and outhouse. To match the shiplap wooden wall of the back of the cottage, the studio too was painted black with a splash of yellow as a throwback to Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage and garden in Dungeness, the yellow also matches some interior decor of the cottage.
Planting is lush and colourful from spring through to autumn. I also introduced a faux-sunken seating area using gabion baskets and local stone which over the course of a couple of years will become wrapped in luxurious shade planting with ferns and flowering shrubs and perennials. Nearer to the cottage is a stepped kitchen garden filled with herbs and other edibles. A small water feature sits at the top of the long right hand border, all lit by external lighting.
