Garden designWater & wellbeingPlanting design3D & virtual realityDesign & buildWedding gardens
Private garden · Surrey
A Shady Patio
A four-season retirement garden designed around light, planting, togetherness and sustainable garden care
Candace and Peter bought their newly built property as their forever home, somewhere they could enjoy their retirement and spend as much time as possible outdoors.
The house came with a completely blank-canvas garden, apart from one substantial mature pine tree in the far corner. While this gave me plenty of freedom, it also created one of the main challenges of the design: very different light conditions within the same garden.
The area closest to the house receives plenty of sunshine, while the mature tree canopy creates considerably shadier conditions towards the back.
Rather than seeing this contrast as a limitation, I used it to create two distinct planting experiences within one garden, moving from a colourful, sun-loving prairie-style palette into a softer, more intimate woodland-edge garden.
From vision to reality
The garden was designed in photorealistic 3D before anything was built, so the clients could walk through it first. Here is that design beside the same view of the finished garden.
A Garden Inspired by Their Relationship
Sometimes the smallest moment at an initial consultation can shape an entire design.
When I first met Candace and Peter at their home, they were standing together holding hands. There was something wonderfully natural about it, and it immediately inspired the main geometry of the garden.
I designed two circles that meet and overlap, becoming the underlying structure of the landscape.
The circles represent two people with their own identities and lives, joined together as one, a subtle reference to Candace and Peter’s strong relationship that is permanently embedded within the hard landscaping.
Rather than being purely symbolic, the circles also organise the garden beautifully, creating movement, changing viewpoints and distinct spaces without dividing what is still a relatively intimate garden.
Designed for Life Outdoors
One of Candace and Peter’s priorities was to make the garden somewhere they could spend as much time as possible throughout the year.
The terrace closest to the house provides the main outdoor dining space and creates an easy connection between indoors and out, allowing them to enjoy alfresco meals whenever the weather allows.
Further into the garden, the second circle creates another destination.
An Indian sandstone seating terrace sits amongst generous planting in the middle of the garden, giving the couple somewhere quieter to sit, read, enjoy a coffee or simply spend time surrounded by plants.
Rather than positioning every seating area against the house or boundary, placing this terrace within the planting completely changes the experience. From here, the garden is viewed from inside the landscape rather than simply looking at it from the edge.
From Sunshine to Woodland
The changing light levels became one of the most important influences on the planting design.
In the sunny part of the garden, the planting takes inspiration from a loose, prairie-style palette, using flowering perennials and ornamental grasses to create movement, colour and a long season of interest.
Plants such as Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’, with its dark stems and violet flowers, sit alongside Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’, while Verbena bonariensis introduces transparent height through the planting.
Ornamental grasses add softness and movement. Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’ provides strong upright structure, while Miscanthus ‘Morning Light’ develops elegant silvery flower plumes towards the end of summer.
As you move towards the mature pine and the shadier end of the garden, the character gradually changes.
Here, the planting becomes more woodland-like, using foliage, texture and softer flowers rather than relying purely on colour.
Silver-leaved Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’, architectural Dryopteris ferns, variegated Hostas and delicate Tiarella create layers beneath the tree canopy, allowing the shaded part of the garden to feel intentional, lush and atmospheric rather than simply being the difficult corner of the site.
Sustainable, Low-Maintenance Planting
The planting was designed not only to look abundant, but to work efficiently over time.
Rather than leaving large areas of exposed soil, the flower beds are densely planted with compatible perennials, ornamental grasses and shrubs. As the planting establishes and knits together, it creates living ground cover that shades the soil surface, reducing the amount of light available to weed seedlings and helping to suppress their opportunity to germinate.
This creates a fuller, more natural garden while also reducing the need for constant weeding and intervention.
The planting combinations were selected to work together according to light, moisture, height and seasonal interest, allowing the garden to mature into a layered plant community rather than relying on isolated plants surrounded by bare soil.
The borders are also mulched with Strulch, a mineralised straw mulch, helping to retain moisture in the soil, reduce evaporation and support healthy plant growth without relying on chemical treatments.
It is a simple but important part of the garden’s long-term sustainability: healthier soil, improved water retention and a planting scheme designed to become increasingly self-supporting as it matures.
Four Seasons to Discover
Because Candace and Peter genuinely love plants, it was important that the garden did not have just one short moment when everything looked its best.
Instead, I wanted there always to be something new to notice.
Spring brings fresh foliage and woodland flowers. Summer belongs to the Salvias, Nepeta, lavender and drifting perennial planting. Later in the year, Rudbeckia, Persicaria and ornamental grasses extend the interest well into autumn.
Structure and colour continue through winter too. Cornus sanguinea ‘Winter Beauty’ develops striking yellow-orange and red stems after its leaves fall, while evergreen shrubs, grasses and the existing pine maintain the framework of the garden.
Even the trees contribute to the seasonal story, with plants such as the purple-leaved Acer palmatum ‘Atropurpureum’ providing particularly vivid autumn colour.
The result is a garden that continually changes rather than reaching a single peak.
A Garden to Grow Old With
Completed over two months, what began as a blank garden around a newly built house has become a landscape designed specifically around the way Candace and Peter want to enjoy their retirement.
There are sunny places for dining, a quieter seating area immersed in planting, different routes and viewpoints to experience, and an ever-changing collection of plants to follow through the seasons.
The garden was planted in 2022, during one of the longest and driest periods of the summer, which became a real test of the planting strategy. By selecting plants carefully for the specific light levels, soil conditions and long-term resilience of the site, the garden established successfully despite the challenging weather.
That experience reinforced one of the key principles behind the design: choosing the right plant for the right place creates gardens that are not only beautiful, but more resilient and better suited to our changing climate.
The dense, layered planting also means the garden is designed to become more settled and easier to manage as it matures, an important consideration for a forever home.
But my favourite part of the garden remains the simplest idea behind it.
Two circles, individually complete but joined together, a quiet reference to the couple who inspired the design in the first place.
For a forever home, it felt like exactly the right place to begin.
Every garden here started with a conversation.Book a free consultation
Planting
- Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna'Sun
- Nepeta 'Walker's Low'Sun
- Verbena bonariensisSun
- Calamagrostis 'Karl Foerster'Sun
- Miscanthus 'Morning Light'Sun
- Brunnera 'Jack Frost'Shade
- DryopterisShade
- HostaShade
- TiarellaShade
- Cornus sanguinea 'Winter Beauty'Winter
- Acer palmatum 'Atropurpureum'Autumn
Gallery
What my clients say
The clients of this garden
“She has created a joyful space, which we never tire of gazing at and sitting and socialising in.”
We gave Kitti a design brief for a shady patio under the large pine tree and interesting colourful trees to obscure the views of neighbouring houses. This was achieved and the figure of eight which she designed broke up the rectangular shape of the garden into two main areas, which she filled with 93 different flowers, shrubs and trees, many of which were quite unknown to us. There is always something new going on.
“Kitti is a rare designer in that she truly listens to her client.”
She took the time to understand our family's requirements and translated them into an original garden that went beyond what we had imagined. The finished garden gives us enjoyment throughout the seasons while remaining easy to maintain. Her creativity, enthusiasm and ability to recognise the potential in a space made a real difference to the final result.
“Kitti guided us through a complex project with far more to it than we initially thought.”
Her design was inspired and refreshing, and she helped us find landscapers we could trust to bring it to life. Kitti remained involved throughout the project, offering advice and practical suggestions whenever they were needed. The finished garden exceeded our expectations, and we would happily recommend her to anyone considering a garden project.
Thinking about your own garden?
A free conversation about your space, with no obligation.