Help with garden design

tink2

Hi we are starting work on our garden we have erected wall at the back of the garden and laid a foundation for a steel shed. Size of garden is 30ft by 30ft shed will be 8x10. We want a patio for entertaining on the left hand side of the garden as you look at the picture but want enough lawn for a swing or trampoline also. I don't want the garden to look too 'hard looking ' either so would welcome any suggestions on patio size and design and planting. Thanks in advance!

tink2

Photo attached

looksee

It would be useful to have a pic of the back of the house, presumably it looks like the one beyond the end of the garden? Do you have patio doors or are you going out of the back door? Which way is south as you look at the garden? Does the steel shed door face towards the house or across to the side wall? You are saying the garden is 30 x 30 but it looks rectangular in the pic, judging by the blocks it is about 20ft wide?

tink2

Hi thanks for your reply, yes it is 30 x 20 ft
Shed door will face towards back of the house
The back of the house is exactly the same as the house opposite with a large window and back door
The garden is North facing

Think that is everything!

looksee

Ok, just a few thoughts.

You will need some sort of hard surface outside the back door, and there is probably a path there already.
In a north facing garden the best chance of sun is in the far right corner in the evening, except that the shed will be shading it. So maybe bring it down about half way on the right to catch the evening sun.

Having your patio bottom left you are in the corner with almost no evening sun - see the diagrams on this page http://www.garden-design-it-yourself.com/garden-design-tips.html

Could I suggest that you take a curving path from the back door past the shed door and over to the proposed patio, leaving enough spaces at the edges to put in some climbers to cover the walls. That would give you a mostly circular lawn near the house and a rectangular space beside the shed where the swing would go.

You do not need continuous straight beds beside the walls, just unpaved spaces where you can plant climbers. Put in some strong supporting wires at the start and you will save yourself a lot of heartache messing with trellis and bits of wire supports as you discover you need them. You could probably have one medium tree - something open and airy like a silver birch - at the far right of the garden in the corner. Wall cover plants could include climbing hydrangea, clematis, rose zephirine drouhin which is scented and happy to grow in shade, honeysuckle. A bit more colour could be provided in the garden with a couple of large planters beside the patio.

tink2

Thanks so much that will give us a great help in planning the space !