This enchanting Courtyard garden with a Magical bridge across the moat leads to a 13th-century carp pool that I renovated. It remains the customer’s favourite place to relax with nature.

I designed the garden to blend with the lakeside background to reduce the visual barrier between the wild and domestic areas.

Native trees surround the grounds, Oak, Ash, Alder and Willow. Birch trees line the drive with a graceful majesty to the approach. It’s all about maintaining a balance in such space, which needs no intrusive addition.

Subtle pruning of all the trees to extend life and renewal, thinning out excessive growth of self-seeded goat willow and sycamores, remove choking vegetation from the pool, to allow areas of clear water for fish and foal to feed.

Careful addition of grasses, iris and lavender around the house offered no interruption to the landscape while providing a natural softness to the patio areas.

High summer offers a swathe of meadowsweet and flag iris to the water margins while tall bullrush stand proudly in open water. Nature needs no improvement just a helping hand.

Courtyard gardens are often places of environmental contrast, from extreme warm areas where all the hard surfaces reflect the sun opposing the deep shade, and dark, cool corners where the sun does not reach.

Careful and thoughtful planting will negate and embrace the conditions accordingly; the wrong planting will fail quickly in extreme conditions. It’s worth the extra effort to improve or even replace the soil in your courtyard beds because the building’s proximity typically leads to impoverished soils during the construction work.

I continue to regularly work in this garden and look forward to posting updates!