Circulation & Pathways
Movement through the Arundel rear garden is guided by a soft, meandering path system that responds directly to the site’s natural topography. Rather than imposing rigid geometry, the circulation follows the contours, slipping through rises, skirting around micro-wetland swales, and threading gently between planting zones. These paths create a slow, intuitive rhythm of movement, the feeling of being led deeper into a small forest rather than simply crossing a backyard. Each curve is purposeful: revealing framed views to South Surrey Park, opening into sunlit clearings, or narrowing into shaded woodland moments. The pathway network becomes a narrative device, inviting exploration, pause, and quiet immersion in the ecology that surrounds it.
<aside> Front Garden
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The Planted Porch
The front garden is conceived as a welcoming, human-scaled landscape that celebrates Andrew and Elizabeth’s love of plants and their role as careful stewards of the land. Drawing inspiration from Edna Walling, the design favours soft curves, layered borders, and a generous mingling of perennials, grasses, bulbs, and flowering shrubs. Plants are allowed to overlap, self-seed, and soften edges, creating a garden that feels settled rather than styled. This is a place of daily interaction, where bulbs emerge quietly in winter, perennials rise and fall with the seasons, and the garden rewards close observation over time. It is designed not as a fixed composition, but as a living collection that evolves alongside those who tend it.
Planting Character & Seasonal Expression
The planting palette in the front garden leans into movement, texture, and long seasonal expression. Grasses such as Microlaena and Calamagrostis provide rhythm and structure, while perennials like Gaura, Verbena, Penstemon, Salvias, Achillea, and Rudbeckia bring long-flowering colour and lightness through the warmer months. Spring bulbs and early perennials Galanthus, Allium, Lunaria, Papaver ensure the garden stirs early, while plants like Hylotelephium, Anemone, Eryngium, and Miscanthus carry the display into autumn. Productive and edible elements, including apple, dill, and nasturtium, are woven naturally through the planting, reinforcing the idea of a garden to be lived with and used. Together, these species create a richly layered, generous arrival garden that feels welcoming, expressive, and deeply connected to the people who care for it.
