This secluded corner of a much larger garden in West Byfleet, Surrey had been used as a builder's yard during an extensive house renovation, leaving behind bare gravel and overgrown shrubs where there was once potential for something special. The owners' brief was clear: they wanted somewhere soft, natural and deeply restful — a complete counterpoint to the large hard-landscaped patio the building work had left around the house.

We transformed the space into a naturalistic garden room, centred on three new multi-stem cherry trees whose light, airy canopy shelters a peaceful seating area below. The planting beneath and around them was designed to feel abundant and uncontrolled, with generous drifts of Salvia Amethyst, Nepeta Walker’s Low, Centranthus rubra Album, Erigeron karvinskianus, Origanum Herrenhausen and Cistus purpurea weaving together in a tapestry that hums with bees and butterflies throughout the summer months.

A stone birdbath sits at the heart of the planting, and a bark mulch path winds through the borders, inviting you to slow down and move through the garden rather than simply look at it. The before-and-after contrast could hardly be more striking.

The clients love the feeling of being immersed in plants whilst still having long views out across the rest of the garden — and that balance between enclosure and openness is exactly what makes this space so successful.