Landscape design and build · Rutland & the Welland valley
Garden design, build and planting across Rutland & the Welland valley. A design starts with a measured survey and a scaled section — the layers, the heights and the root depths — so the garden can be built to a price and read in every month, not just the photograph.
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The idea the studio is built on
A designed border is composed the way a wood is: a canopy, an understorey, a shrub layer, the herbaceous layer, and a floor of groundcover — each holding a different height above the ground and a different depth of root below it. Get the layers right and something holds the eye every month; get them wrong and the bed is bare for eleven.
Scroll the section below and you are building it in the order we build it on site — the drain and the topsoil first, then the planting biggest-first, canopy down to bulb. Every height and depth is drawn to one scale, the same numbers we hand the client.
Section drawing · built in layers
A north-facing border built in six layers, so something holds the eye in every month of the year.
| Layer | Height | Root depth | Planting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subgrade and land drain | — | 1.15 m | Reduced level dug to formation, a 80mm perforated land drain laid to a 1:80 fall. |
| Topsoil | — | 0.4 m | 400mm of screened topsoil, ameliorated with composted bark, left to settle. |
| Canopy | 2.4–7 m | 1.1 m | Multi-stem Amelanchier and river birch — the height and the winter structure. |
| Understorey | 0.7–3.3 m | 0.7 m | Cornus, hazel and Viburnum — the layer that reads at eye level. |
| Shrub layer | 0.2–1.5 m | 0.5 m | Hydrangea, Sarcococca and hardy geranium massed for cover. |
| Herbaceous | 0–1 m | 0.35 m | Salvia, Geranium and Molinia — the flowering months, cut back each spring. |
| Groundcover and bulbs | 0–0.2 m | 0.18 m | Epimedium and Geranium over 12,000 bulbs — the floor that suppresses weeds. |
Seven storeys share one bed: a canopy at seven metres over a rooting depth of more than a metre, down to a groundcover two hundred millimetres high. They are chosen so their roots do not all fight for the same spit of soil — which is the whole difference between a planting plan and a border that thins in its third year.
The same ground, before any of it
The plot as found: a mown sward on compacted subsoil. One layer, sixty millimetres high, rooting a hand's depth down, and nothing above it. Dead flat. There is no shortcut from here to the section above — only the digging, the drainage and the soil that the photographs never show.
Section drawing · the plot as found
The same ground before any design: a mown sward on compacted subsoil, one layer and nothing above it.
| Layer | Height | Root depth | Planting |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compacted subsoil | — | 0.25 m | Builder’s subsoil, compacted, no drainage, no structure. |
| Mown sward | 0–0.1 m | 0.12 m | Rye-grass mown weekly. A single storey, 60mm high, rooting 120mm down. |
Nothing was taken away to make this. It is the same drawing, the same scale — there is simply only one storey in it, because that is all that was there.
What we do
We survey the ground, draw it in section, and plan the planting layer by layer — canopy, understorey, shrub, herbaceous, ground. You get scaled drawings and a costed schedule, not a mood board, so the garden can be built to a price and to a date.
Groundworks, drainage, paving, steps, walls and planting, by our own teams rather than labour-only subcontract. We price off the section, so the sub-base, the falls and the drainage are in the figure before the first turf is lifted.
The layers are set biggest-first: canopy trees while the beds are open, then understorey, shrubs, the herbaceous layer and the groundcover that suppresses the weeds. Stock is specified by size and root form, not bought on the day off a pallet.
A garden is planted small and read mature. We hold the beds through the first three years — watering, formative pruning, cutting back and gapping up — because that is the difference between a planting plan and a garden.
What it costs to start
| Design — survey, section and planting plan A measured survey, a scaled section through every bed, a planting plan by layer, and a costed schedule you can build from — with us or without us. | from £2,400 | fixed, credited against the build |
|---|---|---|
| Build — hard and soft landscaping Groundworks, drainage, paving, walls and planting by our own teams. Priced off the section, so the ground below the surface is in the number too. | by schedule | fixed price against the drawings |
| Maintenance — the first three years A young planting is a build that is not finished. We hold the beds through establishment: watering plan, formative pruning, and the gapping-up nobody budgets for. | from £180 | per visit |
From the journal
A first site visit covers the ground, the levels and what the garden is being asked to do. If the honest answer is that you do not need a designer, that is what we will tell you.
