Garden Designers & Landscape Gardeners
Garden Buildings in South & East England

Hawaiian Garden
As featured extensively on BBC Chelsea Flower Show coverage and in Real Homes Magazine.
Evening sun filters through the dense planting to this deck made from recycled hardwood. The edges of the deck curve around a pond and planting areas making a jetty like path that curves out of sight, leading you to the rest of the garden.
Photo courtesy of Marcus Harpur. Copyright Harpur Garden Images.

Left -  The owner of this garden was interested in Tiki culture and sailing, so we incorporated some nautical influences into our design, like the heavy rope and pole balustrade around this deck, making a barrier to the deep pond that is overhung by the deck. Photo courtesy of Marcus Harpur. Copyright Harpur Garden Images.
Right -  Our client Lloyd Johnson is very knowledgeable about Hawaiian art. We executed his design for the A frame building and the cladding of the shed next to it - cleverly disguising a functional building with palm leaves on the roof and rattan panels on the walls. We incroporated the Tiki statue into our design, setting it between some large stones and ferns. Lloyd painted the stunning tribal designs on the A frame and added the torch lights. We really enjoy collaborations such as this - in any style. You can see our own designs for buildings on our dedicated page here.    

Left - this photo shows how the combination of Easter Island art, nautical jetty style deck and Hawaiian Tiki art fitted in with our design and planting style. A combination we would not have thought of and one of the most successful collaboations we have been involved in. See more of our designs that have used figures and murals here.
Right - the Miscanthus grass here seems to fit perfectly over the Easter Island sculpture giving it a head of hair. Our favourite combination of gravel and natural stone is given a maritime flavour here by the deck, rope, Cordyline australis and grass. Photo courtesy of Marcus Harpur. Copyright Harpur Garden Images.

We continued the jetty style of the deck into the garden using the same timber to make a path. You can see how the planting has matured in just a few years here, so that the path and the views out over the whole of the garden are revealed slowly, saving the whole vista for your journey to the 'Hawaiian beach hut'. A mid green form of the 'New Zealand Flax' - Phormium tenax, together with Cordyline australis beyond represent the plants' contribution to the antipodean style. 

This building was a large shed and workshop which our client had plans for, so following his designs, we added the verandah with large round posts supporting its roof, adorned it with rope, nets and floats and roof covering of palm leaf - imitating a thatch. From shed to as close as Hawaiian beach hut as you can get in west London, this verandah became the venue for many parties, long afternoons with friends and family and simply a place to go and relax at the furthest point from the house. See more of our building and verandah designs here.

We use gravel as a weed supressing mulch and plant through it so that as the plants mature the gravel is no longer seen. In this garden though, the gravel matched the coastal, maritime character of the garden so large areas of the gravel could be left exposed. The ferns, banana - Musa basjoo, and Arum lily - Zantadeschia aetheopica all match the tropical Hawaiian style also, making a coherent composition. 
Photos courtesy of Marcus Harpur. Copyright Harpur Garden Images.

Our design approach at RGC starts at the large scale - looking at the overall structure of the garden, the shapes and proportions used and the physical characteristics of the site and its location. At the other end of the scale we pay careful attention to the small details and finishing touches which can really make a design work, and are the more obvious features noticed by most visitors to the garden. Ironically the larger scale design influences tend to have a subliminal effect which is not conciously noticed by the casual observer. Photos courtesy of Marcus Harpur. Copyright Harpur Garden Images.
 

Left - this handsome specimen of Cordyline australis fits the antipodean character of the garden. When seen from the deck next to the house it makes an important focal point in the foreground and partially obstructs your view to the back of the garden. This is an important role for a plant to fulfil as it must have the beauty to command a dominant size and position and have the right growth habit to only partially block views.
Centre - the deck spans almost the entire width of the garden and adjoins all of the back of the house. In a garden which is dominated by the two straight sided parallel fences we sought to introduce as many curves as possible in all aspects of the design. The front edge of the deck was very important as it is the place where people interact with the pond which has plenty of activity to observe as it is full of fish and also teeming with newts, frogs, water boatmen and millions of aquatic insects which can find refuge and places to breed amongst the stones above and below the water. Visiting birds, cats and dogs, are also able to reach the water thanks to our stone lined natural pond design. You can see more of our ponds here.
Right - the front edge of the deck followed the curve of the pond and then around the end of it to form the jetty-like walkway leading to the rest of the garden. The curves on this edge of the deck made space for the planting composition and placement of the Easter Island statue. 

Left - our ergonomic design approach lead us to ask many questions of our clients when we first met. We needed to know exactly what they wanted to do on their deck; how many people they would like to be able to seat there, where they would walk across it to get to, how they would relax, work, entertain or cook on it. This lead us to design a really large deck that overhung the pond and that acommodated all the acivities and practical requirements they asked for. You can see many more of our deck designs here.
Right - our clients did not want to use the standard 'decking boards' sold by DIY superstores or anything that looked too new and 'domesticated' so we sourced this recycled hardwood that used to clad a school house in India. The beauty of this wood is that it was rough hewn, meaning that the uneven surface provided grip when wet. The hardness of the timber also limited the amount of moss and algae growth, further reducing the need to clean it or treat it. 

Left - Miscanthus grasses, aquatic irises, Cordyline australis, green Phormium tenax, bamboo and on the right a huge purple form of Phormium tenax all contribute to the fine foliage character of this part of the garden.
Right - the view back towards the house from the Hawaiian beach hut.
Photos courtesy of Marcus Harpur. Copyright Harpur Garden Images.