Complete Garden Makeover in Richmond

The brief

The garden had good bones but hadn't been meaningfully touched in years. The surfaces were tired, the borders had grown into each other, and the layout dated from a previous owner's life rather than this one's, the seating sat where the sun wasn't, and the parts of the garden that got the best light were given over to nothing in particular. The owners didn't want a tidy-up that would fade within a season; they asked for a proper makeover: a garden arranged around how they actually live, somewhere to sit and entertain, greenery that largely looks after itself, and a finish that feels complete rather than pieced together.

How we approached it

Every makeover starts with the same two questions: how do you want to use the garden, and what is the garden actually giving you to work with? We spent time on both before anything was cleared, tracking where the sun falls through the day, noting what drained well and what didn't, and identifying the established planting worth keeping. Mature planting takes years to replace, so a good makeover keeps the best of what exists and rebuilds around it rather than starting from scratch out of habit.

Richmond gardens tend to be overlooked to some degree, so the layout also had to think about privacy, positioning the seating where it feels enclosed, and using planting rather than fortress fencing to soften the sightlines. The plan settled on clearly defined zones: a generous seating area placed for the light, a lawn sized to be kept well rather than as big as possible, and structured borders that give the garden shape in every season.

What we did

• ✓Surveyed the garden's light, drainage and existing planting before finalising the new layout
• ✓Cleared the tired and overgrown elements while retaining the established planting worth keeping
• ✓Reworked the layout into defined areas for seating, lawn and borders, placed around where the light actually falls
• ✓Corrected the levels and prepared the ground properly, drainage and soil first, surfaces second
• ✓Installed the new hard landscaping and refreshed the boundaries to frame the garden cleanly
• ✓Rebuilt the borders with layered, structural planting chosen for the garden's aspect and soil
• ✓Handed over a clean site with every load of waste removed

The result

A garden that works as an extension of the house rather than a view from the window. The seating now sits where the evening sun does, the lawn is a size the owners can genuinely keep on top of, and the borders give the space structure in winter as well as flower in summer. Because the preparation, levels, drainage, soil, was done before anything visible went in, the garden is set up to mature well rather than peak on handover day. It stays looking intentional with routine care instead of constant effort, which is exactly what was asked for.