In brief: SuDS-compliant front garden providing access for people, separate from the car parking area, and with a welcoming vibe.
Description: A low-maintenance functional gravel garden for the front of an angular 1950s brick house, which will replace a lawn and a crazy-paving access area with a sustainable permeable surface and generous planting. The low boundary wall will be opened to provide pedestrian-only access away from the carport, and planting will segregate the pedestrian access from the parking area.
Brick has been used to edge the gravel and in soldier courses strips through the gravel. The material echoes the architecture of the house, helping connect the garden with the building. The brick strips in the gravel help identify the carport area, while also bringing rhythm to the overall space, and keeping the gravel from travelling.
Sustainability and biodiversity are integrated into the design, from the choice of a permeable surface through to a selection of tough, droughtresilient plants.
Project status: Submitted as a college project (2020) but in progress in real life (2024).
Drawings: Hand drawn on tracing paper, scanned, and hand rendered with colour pencils.
Scale: Original at 1:50 (A3)
‘Space for people’ front garden
Design process
The drawings on these two pages illustrate the design process, from site survey to experimenting with proportions and exploring a suitable geometry to underpin the design.
Lining up the geometry with the house resulted in awkward angles. Geometry following the lines of the boundary wall on the street side allowed a more comfortable connection with the house.
“We’d like the front garden to feel more welcoming, and not just like a car park we walk through to get home”
In brief: Contemporary back garden for a family of four, including two boisterous young boys.
Description: A long garden at the back of a 1970s house, currently with a patio near the house, a lawn in the middle, and an unkempt sitting area at the back with a large shed. The family has recently moved in. Both parents are working fulltime, and they would like the garden to be a place where they can relax and have meals with friends.
They have no particular style in mind but would like something that feels contemporary, not too fussy. While the mother enjoys pottering around the garden, the planting should not require too much maintenance, and it should be tough enough to cope with footballs and toys straying into the borders.
A lawn should be retained, not too far from the house, for the two boys to play on. There should also be a chill-out area at the back, with a structure to provide shade on hot summer days –and fairy lights for dinner parties.
The current paving will be lifted, reconditioned, and laid out to a new pattern on the patio. Elsewhere, affordable materials will be used, such as bark chips for the chill-out area, and timber for the edging.
Project status: In progress.
Drawings: Sketch hand drawn on printing paper, then rendered with marker pens; plans are hand drawn on tracing paper, scanned, and hand rendered with iPad.
Scale: Plan: original at 1:50 (A2); sketch: n/a
The drawings on these two pages show the key stages of the design process. The contemporary aesthetics in the brief called for an asymmetrical geometry, to support the more dynamic design usually associated with modern gardens. The dimensions of the site also required shapes and patterns that would make sense of the length of the
garden.
Initially I experimented with a layout at 90 degrees. It allowed me to deliver the various requirements in the brief, but it felt a little flat (this page).
I then tilted the underlying grid (not shown) at 45 degrees, and played with more patterns, trying to find the number of shapes and an arrangement that would be proportionate to the site (see opposite page, top two).
The 45-degree angle helped open the site sideways, but it looked a little rigid.
With no other obvious reference (as with the ‘Space for people’ front garden, on the previous pages, where the line of the pavement was a useful starting point), I tried an arbitrary, but familiar, angle of 30 degrees to the house.
This both opened up the site and kept it together (opposite, lower two drawings).
In brief: Low-maintenance public planting scheme with strong emphasis on winter interest.
Description: Planting design project for a NorthLondon borough, set on a traffic junction outside a parade of shops.
The brief referenced visits to Anglesey Abbey and Cambridge Botanic Garden, and it called for winter
interest from stems and bark. The drawings on this double-page spread are what I submitted at the time I was studying for the Garden Design Diploma at Capel Manor College (2021). Overleaf is my current response to the brief.
Project status: College assignment (submitted).
Winter-interest public planting scheme
Design process
This project is one of the set assignments on the Garden Design Diploma at Capel Manor College. Having now taught this course for two years, I revisited the creative process and did a hands-on demonstration for students earlier this year.
The drawings on these two pages are the result of this exercise. The ones on this page were inspired by a geometric scheme at King’s Cross, which cuts up a long, thin triangular planting area into a series of narrow and not-quite-parallel sections to create a dynamic, vibrant design.
This approach, I thought, could work well with the layout of the site for the assignment. Aside from the requirements in the brief, the plant choices also meet several common expectations in public planting schemes in relation to structure, evergreen interest, robustness, and low-maintenance.
In the pages opposite, I reverted to a more traditional approach of arranging plants in groups, keeping to a small number of species that are repeated across the bed. I then took this design into SketchUp, set up a scene, exported and printed it, and finally traced over it and coloured it.
In both cases, the underlying pattern-making process starts from a line or corner of the raised bed.
In brief: Low-maintenance garden with challenging soil conditions on an exposed site.
Description: This design and planting project started off as a college assignment and was implemented in an actual garden over the following years.
With an initial focus on dry gravel garden conditions such as those found at Beth Chatto’s and Hyde Hall, the assignment required students to think about a
layout suitable for a naturalistic style, to select appropriate plants for the conditions and aesthetics, and to organise the planting to reflect the style.
Project status: Real-life college assignment (submitted) implemented.
Drawings: Plan and elevation hand drawn on tracing paper, scanned; sketches from my sketchbook.
Scale: Original at 1:50 (A2)
Photos: Beth Chatto garden, Hyde Hall © Jean-Yves Gilg
Resilient gravel garden
Design process
Unlike other projects presented in this portfolio, the layout for this design is based on circles, arranged to create organic shapes, in keeping with the received aesthetics of naturalistic gardens. The process is more convoluted than when making patterns with rectangles based on symmetrical or asymmetrical combinations. It involves a lot more experimentation with circle sizes and how they are arranged, to create patterns that are proportionate to the site. And it feels more difficult to get right.
The real-life project brought additional challenges. The soil at the site was alkaline, poorly drained chalky clay which remains wet in winter and dries out quickly in summer. In addition, the chalk bedrock is within one to 1.5 metre of the soil surface, and there are caves underneath. This contributes to further drying out and restricts tree growth significantly. There is no irrigation on site, so plants must be able to cope with hot and dry summers (up to 40C +), and traditionally wet and cold winters (down to -8C for a few days).
The beds were excavated to 30cm and eight cubic metres of new soil were brought in – a mixture of garden compost, sand and grit – to provide a suitable environment for the plants to establish and thrive. The soil was local but this operation raises sustainability questions nevertheless.
In brief: Formal patio and garden at the back of a former 18th-century vicarage.
Description: The design for this garden was inspired by the White Garden in Sissinghurst, but adapted to different conditions. Exposed, on poor soil, and with a requirement for minimal maintenance and watering, this called for a different set of plants altogether.
One of my aims was also to demonstrate that it is possible to design formal gardens that are sustainable and comparatively low maintenance.
The underlying geometry, therefore, retains the symmetry that underpins formal gardens, reflecting
the style of the house, and importing it into a nonrectilinear footprint.
The design process started in the usual way on paper, but earlier this year I took the project into SketchUp. Initially this was only to produce the planting plan, but I also played around with the design itself (see opposite page).
Project status: Implemented, with ongoing review.
Drawings: Plan and elevation hand drawn on tracing paper, scanned; CAD drawings exported from SketchUp.
Scale: Original plan at 1:50 (A2)
Photos: The Old Vicarage, Nidevelle © Jean-Yves Gilg
I have used Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for office work the past 30 years and I am comfortable with all three of them. I have also used them in garden design for presentation purposes. Although they weren’t intended for this kind of use, they have proved useful for this too.
When I worked as a journalist, I occasionally used QuarkExpress and InDesign, but this was primarily to edit copy, not for any regular magazine design work. I also have basic understanding of html and web-design software, having taken part in web development for online reporting services and magazines.
Last year I started using SketchUp, which seems to have interesting potential. At this stage, however, my work still looks more like early-days video games, and I find it more impactful – and also more personal - to trace over ‘scenes’.
I started keeping a sketchbook when I studied at Capel manor. It was one of the requirements of the course. It felt daunting to start with, but it allowed me to develop my drawing skills and to use them in a professional context. I now enjoy sketching, and although I mostly sketch plant groups, it has been useful in developing observation skills, which then feeds into design.
A few years ago, I also started going to ceramics classes. This was originally because I wanted to do something with my hands, but it has also helped me develop a process. I don’t always draw the object I intend to make, but I now think much more about how I am going to make them. And it has also taught
