Country Living, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Credits

Mike Long
Lead Designer

Zion Landscapes
Main Contractors

Rougham, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Location

Our clients have lived in their Suffolk home for many years, the garden has always served a practical purpose, plenty of space to raise a family, rear animals and grow vegetables. The main house dates back to the 17th century, but with the addition of an ultra modern zinc-plated extension, the garden was required to fall in line with the high spec of the finish on the house.

The previous garden was all rather on top of you, with a large hedge, overgrown shrubs and self seeded trees unnecessarily taking your attention. Our solution was to grub out the overgrown items, pushing the garden back into the empty space behind, whilst simultaneously making features of key, show stopping native trees.

We wanted to create something that was sensitive to both the heritage of the property, but complimented the new modern extension. We achieved this through the use of shape and materials. Using a natural stone, such as Jura Grey Limestone, meant we could implement modern laying patterns, but the softness of the natural stone does not overpower the space. Keeping the immediate landscape more formal, by using plants such as Buxus balls and Allium around the immediate terrace has further complimented strong use of form on the new extension. The curvaceous shape that ends the terrace is extruded out to form the shape used for the water rill and the large herbaceous, segmented borders. The further you travel away from the house, the looser the planting becomes, eventually going to pictorial meadow borders beneath large trees around the croquet lawn.

Our clients love to have friends and family over, often enjoying various lawn sports. At the side of the property was a large unused space, although this does receive a good amount of sunlight, there are no main views from the house to this area. Here we incorporated a large pétanque piste, edged on both ends with a decking to play from, and formalised with a line of Buxus balls. Keen croquet players, the rear paddock was levelled and re-seeded to create a large croquet lawn.