New Garden at Stanton St John, Oxfordshire

This was the second garden we had worked on for a couple that had downsized and moved to this picturesque Oxfordshire village. The garden was devoid of plants apart from a few mature fruit trees. Babylon Design partnered with Harriet Naylor a London-based garden designer to create an interesting garden that made the best use of a strange shaped plot. Harriet’s design laid out a new formal shaped lawn sectioned off with beech, yew, and box hedging. Babylon Design then built the garden and developed the planting scheme with the owners who had really loved some of the plants in their old garden.

The gravel drive and retaining sleeper walls were altered to create steps up into the garden and drought loving plants were introduced to the drive to soften the sleepers and gravel and make the area attractive as it separates the house from the garden.

Several seating areas were created in the garden, some of which were in green restful areas surrounded only by different textures and greens. Others were set within lush planting of tall herbaceous plants so that the owners could be immersed in the flowers, scents and butterflies.