What is checked
Edges, seams, levels at doors and the way water leaves the lawn.
Our approach / Our inspiration
Our Story
The ideas behind considered outdoor living. Discover our approach, then explore the spaces and materials that inspire it.
Explore the possibilitiesPicture your
Picture your
outdoor everyday.
Explore Our Story: a garden should feel connected to the home and shaped around the people who use it. Our approach brings natural-looking lawn, stone, timber and living planting into one considered space.
The everyday garden
Room for real life
A place to sit. A route to the washing line. A patch of open lawn that does not compete with everything around it. These ordinary details are the beginning of the story.
Designing from a regular weekday keeps the garden honest. It shows where people actually walk, sit and put things down.
Explore backyard lawn planningA place to sit
Seating needs shade and a firm footing.
A route to the washing line
Everyday paths are drawn before lawn shapes are.
Hands in the dirt
The people behind the finish
Most of a lawn is made by hand, in the hours before anyone sees it.
Kneeling on the base to check a seam, trimming a curve with a sharp blade, brushing fibres upright: this quiet work is where a lawn gets its character.
Reading the ground
An installer walks the site first, noting falls, roots and soft spots.
Working to the line
Straight edges and smooth curves come from patient marking and cutting.
Checking by touch
Seams are felt as well as seen, and corrected before they are fixed.
Surface and texture
Not everything needs to be green
A warm stone edge, a timber surface and the shadow of a living plant bring contrast to the lawn. The palette feels calmer when each material has a clear role.
Texture does the work colour cannot. Fibre, stone and timber each catch light differently, which is why samples beat photographs.
Fibre and thatch
Varied blades and dry-looking thatch read as a real lawn.
Stone and planting
Pale pebbles and native planting soften the turf edge.
Timber meets turf
A fine junction where deck boards meet the lawn.
The slow part
Why the base takes the time
The part nobody photographs is the part that decides how the lawn feels underfoot.
A firm, even base reads as a flat, quiet lawn. A rushed one shows up as ripples and soft patches, and it cannot be fixed without lifting the turf.
Dig out what is soft
Weak topsoil and old roots are removed so nothing rots or sinks later.
Spread and shape
Crushed rock is laid in layers and shaped with a gentle fall.
Compact and check
Each layer is compacted and checked with a straight edge.
Lay on a clean surface
Turf goes down only when the base is firm, even and clean.
Light and shade
Let a tree do some of the work
A mature tree, native planting and a stone seat can frame a lawn better than more lawn.
Shade moves through the day and across the seasons. Watching it before you place seating avoids a spot that is pleasant only in winter.
Shade by the hour
Watch where shade falls through the day before placing seating.
Stone to sit on
A seat at the lawn edge gives the garden a pause.
Small tools, big difference
Seams and edges, up close
The finest details of a lawn come from a handful of simple tools.
A sharp blade, the right tape and a stiff broom matter more than any single product. They are why a good seam reads as grass and a poor one reads as a join.
A sharp blade
Clean cuts along the backing so edges meet without gaps.
Matched tape and adhesive
Hold seams flat and invisible under the pile.
Edge fixings
Keep the turf boundary tight to paths and borders.
A stiff broom
Lifts the fibres and settles infill evenly.
Four small studies
A corner, a court, a place to pause
Use these illustrative studies to find a direction, then bring the idea back to the conditions of your own site.
These studies are ideas, not completed projects. Use them to talk about the feeling you want, then adapt it to your own site.
The last hour
The day it is finished
Handover is a quiet moment: a final brush, a walk around the edges and a few questions about care.
It is also the best time to ask for anything that looks off. A garden is easier to put right while the crew is still on site.
What is explained
How to brush, how to clean and what to avoid in the first weeks.
The quiet-weekday test
Plan for Tuesday, not the photograph
A garden that works on a quiet weekday has a stronger foundation than one arranged only for a photograph.
A test for any design
One garden, three readings
Use first, surface second, care always
The same garden can be read in three passes. Each one asks a different question.
Reading the garden three times, for use, for surface and for upkeep, catches problems a single pass misses.
Use
Who walks here, sits here, plays here?
Surface
Which finish suits that use and the light?
Next season
What will keep it looking right once the novelty fades?