A huge part of Sussex garden design is contemplating the material palette that will work well with the surroundings, whether this be on the seafront, or in a country retreat. There are some definite rules when it comes to material choices: what to do, and what not to do, and of course there are some exceptions. We will talk you through why we choose certain materials for each of our Sussex garden design projects.
What are the varying factors with materials?
As much as we would love to choose materials that we are personally obsessed with, we have to consider the below factors before we begin any selection.
– Cost: what’s the budget of your project?
– Size: how big is the garden? The bigger the expanse, the more we will need to break up materials.
– Use: what is the area going to be used for? Perhaps to sit on, or perhaps just to walk over.
– People and pets: will small children be using the garden? Do you have pets that will destroy some materials?
– House: what material is your existing home made from? Will this be changing in the next few years?
– Taste: your personal taste matters to us!
Let’s start by talking about the cost of materials, below is a simple chart displaying the cost of commonly used materials in Sussex garden design projects. If you are going to use an expensive material in perhaps a feature space of the garden, you can always keep this square metreage lower and then bulk out secondary areas like paths with a cheaper material like gravel.
Using what you already have
So as much as it would be great to go to town with all the colours under the sun in your garden space, one way to make your garden look considered and well designed it to look at your surroundings. What’s your house made of? What is your garden boundary, is it a natural fence, a painted fence of maybe even a flint wall. Once you have observed your surroundings, pick a palette or a tone from the existing. For example, a brick house in the Sussex country. Taking some of the orange and red tones from the brick, and the beiges from the mortar means we can design a cohesive and traditional garden.
Around this planter feature, we have used a beige sandstone edging to tie into the creamy mortar tones on the house. We have then used a similar red brick paver pathway to marry with the existing house. This subtle backdrop meant that it was a perfect spot to put a wow factor like this circular copper planter. Another example is below, a Sussex garden design that we completed in Eastbourne. The client’s taste was modern and Mediterranean inspired. The curved flint wall was a fantastic starting point for us to bull colours and materials from. The wall hosts greys, beiges and subtle browns meaning we instantly had our palette: light and natural. We paired this with light gravel, beige porcelain slabs and some ash brown composite decking – mirrored with a natural trellis that would eventually silver off.
Don’t go overboard
A general rule we use with our Sussex garden design work is to not use more than three new main materials, if you do, it has the danger of looking to much like a garden centre. It is always best to plan out which three (or less) you will be using, so get some samples sent to you and place them in your garden first. This garden below, which you can view more of here, has limed oak composite decking from Millboard, corten steel raised beds, and beige limestone. The orange of the corten steel pulls out the oranges from the existing brick wall, and the beige of the decking and limestone tie well together to make everything a bit calmer. If you want to save money, a good way to do this is to use planting along a pathway as you can see here. We used circular stepping stones with sedum between – it helps break up the hardness of the garden whilst also saving money on materials!
Garden material trends – what to start avoiding
There’s some simple ways to make your garden look more ‘wow’ and less twee. Start avoiding bright colours and pots, terracotta or corten steel plant pots look much more sophisticated. Make sure you are edging your lawn, either with straight wood, brick, or metal edging – try to avoid rolled wooden edging. Metal edging is always our preferred option for that clean look. Avoid whites and greys! Bright white gravel is an easy way to make a space look cheaper, start using warm tones like beige and cream. Too much grey can easily suck the life from a garden and give it a dull appearance, natural tones and warmth make a garden look ten times better. Small grey features like powder coated aluminium are fine.
