Ruth Willmott

Tiering or terracing a sloping block will instantly expand your plant choices as water and drainage issues are improved. Enhance your new garden zones with shrubs, decorative grasses, fruit trees, flower beds and patio areas.

John Davies

This garden showcases the amazing results you can achieve if you design your kitchen extension and garden together at the same time, especially if you will have large glass sliders looking at into the garden. This garden’s transformation started as bare bones block-wall & dilapidated fence. Designed for a young family in Cabinteely. The small footprint is tasked with serving multiple roles: from kids play areas to evening entertainment space, storage shed, privacy buffer to the surrounding houses as well as being the aesthetic backdrop to a new glass-wall extension. Bearing in mind the compact area the privacy screening is selected as slimline evergreen Espaliers along the back wall, effectively blocking out all onlooking windows to the rear. This drastically improves the privacy of not just the garden but also the client’s kitchen & family area. Living with kids through the Irish seasons means that the lawn is not just essential to keep in place for play but to also ensuring it is usable throughout the year. A space like this justifies the use of artificial lawn so come rain, hail or shine the garden is never off limits. To achieve multiple uses within the garden we have carefully set the size of the terrace. The terrace protrudes into the lawn just enough to feel generous without compromising the overall balance. By keeping the levels of the lawn & terrace flush with one another allows them be treated as one continuous surface. A limestone border draws the eyeline around the overall perimeter of this compact space. To ensure that the hard landscaping does not dominate we have foliage between each surface, slim flower beds in front of the shed & freestanding pots of luscious evergreens by the floor-to-ceiling windows. This ensures a lush view onto the garden throughout the year.

Gabion retaining walls to terrace garden areas.

Simple and clean design with evergreen structure and summer perennials.

PHOTOS Jules Moore

THE LEMON TREE TRUST GARDEN A garden inspired by the resilience, determination and ingenuity of refugees living in Domiz camp in Northern Iraq, was unveiled at the 2018 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. The Lemon Tree Trust garden, designed with the input of refugees, highlighted the unexpected beauty hidden in the camp. The garden was designed to be used as a space to begin to organise the chaos inherent in forced migration, while also providing a sense of normality, wellbeing, peace and civility to broken lives. Beautiful yet drought tolerant planting educated visitors about the type of plants refugees grow in the camp. Ingenious vertical planting, inspired by refugees’ use of everyday objects, and including input from refugees themselves, provided ideas for planting in limited spaces. Trees laden with fruit, including figs, lemons and pomegranates, provided scent and crops to harvest. Brutal, harsh materials, such as concrete and steel, widely available in the camps, were elevated with techniques such as polishing, casting and crafting into patterns and intricate Islamic inspired designs. Colourful and textural planting softened the hard materials. Cooling and calming water flowed throughout the space, collected in channels and pools, recycled and pumped back through the brimming central Islamic inspired fountain, representing the importance of grey water reuse and the many makeshift fountains refugees have built in their own gardens in Domiz camp. Tom Massey progressed to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, with a 10x13m Main Avenue garden, after two successful show gardens at RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. The garden was built by award winning contractor Landscape Associates and was awarded an RHS Silver-Gilt medal. The Lemon Tree Trust supports the development of urban agriculture and greening innovation for refugees and displaced people, promoting food production, well-being and community: lemontreetrust.org Photographs by Britt Willoughby Dyer

The garden is ripe with foliage contrast both in texture and colour creating a feeling of depth and space. Here Strobilanthes "Persian Shield" takes centre stage Photography by terraneo

The Official Photographers - Aaron & Shannon Radford