Add a garden room to the end of the plot.
London is the home to some of the world’s best garden designs, and homeowners who love them. The best city in the world is teaming with great gardens, the leading garden and flower shows and spaces bursting with opportunity for more added green. What’s more, we have homeowners like you who know how lucky we are to have the space to make a garden, and we want to make the most of it.
My garden design practice is based in London. I have designed gardens for all corners of the city from Harrow on the Hill to Notting Hill, Hampstead Garden Suburb, Bethnal Green, Greenwich, Beckenham, Forest Hill, Dulwich Village, Keston and Ealing and more.
I have dealt with conservation areas and planning, ancient trees and modern and aged buildings. I have solved problems in gardens with design from mismatched slopes and levels, to awkward spaces, legacy plastic grass and boundary diputes.
Here are ten London garden design ideas from some of my gardens that could work across many London gardens, and those further afield too.
Garden rooms add space without disturbing your living space
London garden design is ideal for introducing a garden room. We often have long rectangular gardens and our homes are restricted on each side. So a garden room - this one is bespoke - is ideal for adding extra space to work, play, snooze and work out. My largest garden room incorporates a golf simulator and I applied for planning permission in a conservation area with tree protection orders in Greenwich. The smallest is a shed with storage and looks as sleek as it does small.
Bring planting up to the windows.
Bring planting up to the house for year-round joy
If we lack depth in London gardens, London garden design needs to solves that problem by bring planting right up the windows of the home. Winter is often long and dull, so I will often bring planting right up to the window opening - this one above is a bifold door which expands outwards. That means you can view wildlife, evergreen structure, lighting, sculptures and focal points and enjoy some screening for privacy.
The water features at the Barbican
Introduce water features for peace and tranquility
This is the very famous Barbican centre water feature in the centre of London which brings untold peace and tranquility to residents and visitors. Use London’s best garden features to get the same benefits for yourself. Water features can be as simple as a Cor-ten water bowl which feeds the birds, to a bubbling bowl with a pump from Amazon or a fully-plumbed water rill and pool system. Each option is possible for you depending on the budget and scale of your London garden design.
Gussy up the front.
Treat the front to a makeover
A London garden design takes into account the street frontage because we often lack a drive and a front planting area. In this scheme the house had a new path, door colour, planters, planting material, planting combination, pot and plant. Your London garden design is bespoke and can include a full kerb appeal makeover.
Renters’ dream gardens are completely possible.
Renters can have dream gardens too
London garden design is often for people in properties that we don’t own, or don’t live in permanently. In this case your design should be moveable, and be able to shift with you when your lease is up. This garden in east London is entirely built in pots and on the surface of this porcelain paving. It is on a rooftop above a carpark in a new build development and while the owner is not moving any time soon, they can pick it all up and put it in a removals truck should they ever want to.
Go up and use height with a pergola.
Go up with a pergola
Adding a pergola to your London garden design takes up no space on the ground but adds a huge visual feature and frames the view and your entertaining space. This one above adds shade to the south-facing house, provides swings for the homeowner’s children and frames the outdoor entertaining space. I am often asked to add a pergola to a London garden design and they are all unique to each space. Some are more delicate, others provide deeper shade. Some denote a change of purpose of the area, and others are supports for roses.
London garden design starts with a call then a site visit. To understand more about how garden design works and what it can do for your property, read this helpful guide.
Here are some of London’s beautiful garden designs open to the public.
