URBAN JUNGLE Garden Design, GREENFIELD, BEDFORDSHIRE.

Credits

Mike Long
Lead Designer

Habitat Landscapes
Main Contractor

Greenfield, Bedfordshire
Location

Creating an urban jungle space in the heart of Bedfordshire was a welcome challenge! This project was built by Habitat Landscapes, if landscaping has master craftsmen, Habitat Landscapes fit the bill completely. Habitat, having worked for our client a decade before, reached out to Mike Long Gardens to complete the design, with tight deadlines and a huge brief, this project was extremely fun to deliver.

An urban jungle theme is a relatively up and coming trend, we are seeing more of these type of landscapes in recent years, and this was our first opportunity to deliver on such a style. Our clients brief to us was a ‘party garden’, there was even a reference to Love Island’s South African setting, which did end up forming part of inspiration for the garden design. Our clients wanted a space they host large numbers of family, lots of friends and parties into the night! One of our favourite ways to design is entering into the world which our clients sit, or desire to be at. Therefore, watching our first ever episode of Love Island was a genuine part of the research for the garden, that and listening to some 00’s club music! If our clients want a party garden, we feel its important to have a party atmosphere when designing, that way it overflows from us as we draw.

At the heart of the garden is a large area to commune. A louvered roof Renson pergola stands above the outdoor kitchen, supplied by Grillo. Several bar stools are sited at the edge of the kitchen for our clients to plant host and serve their guests the cocktail of the night. Adjacent to the outdoor kitchen is a large dining space, with several other areas to recline or retreat dotted around the landscape - a sunken seating area that is positioned around a gas fire table and another area beneath a large bespoke pergola adorned in Jasmine climbing up its feet.

The planting theme was kept to a very restrained blue and orange, with these two colours coming out in several other garden features…the bespoke pergola, porcelain patterned tiles and ornamental posts. Keeping the palette of colour simple gave us an additional challenge, but the results are visually striking as the orange really ‘pops’ out from the blue. Orange Geums, Kniphofia and Iris jump out against a background of greens and blue plants such as Eryngium, Brunnera and Iris.