Garden Designers & Landscape Gardeners
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RGC designed and built my garden in phases to a very high quality & are clean and tidy and on site. A friendly service & excellent value for money. Mr.C Marsh.
Carribean Home From Home
Left - as seen in the Sunday Telegraph Magazine our circular star design patio with curving benches and the desert style plants on the south facing hill. In the background on the left is the bamboo hedge that separates this hot sunny planting from the shady jungle style on the other side.
Right - plants such as Aloe aristata and Yucca whipplei seen here thrive in baking hot sun and well drained soil on the front of the desert hill.
Left - on the other side of the bamboo hedge is the jungle. This path leads through the shade loving plants growing in a woodland community in the north facing part of the garden.
Right - you can hear the waterfall before you see it, with water crashing down its 1m high rock face into a catch pool which then feeds a stream, flowing into a pond.
Left - shady areas like this are perfect for growing ferns, tree ferns bamboo and palms. The patio with table and chairs is immeadiately outside the house making extra outdoor living space and the boundary between home and garden seemless.
Right - the same slate patio as in the left photo just after construction, next to the waterfall and stream - you can see the bridge over the stream in the background and beyond it the large palms which were the inspiration for the garden.
Top left - crashing waterfalls can be loud and invigorating which is not suitable for all positions. This garden is built on a hillside so there was a drop in ground levels where this could look like a natural waterfall. Planting surrounds the stones so that the whole structure appears as part of a woodland.
Right - the waterfall is part of rockery terracing that runs right across the back of the garden.
Below left - the waterfall and patio just after construction.
Top left - the south facing slope before we started work with fruit trees and grass.
Below left - 2001 we removed the ageing fruit trees, flattened the lower ground level and raised the upper, back level. Look at the houses behind to get an orientation on the viewpoint of these photos.
Centre - 2005 after the star patio construction and planting were finished.
Right - 2007 taken from exactly the same position as the below left photo. The red leaves beside the path are of Fasicularia bicolour which has a cobalt blue flower inside the red leaves.
Top left - the jungle garden to be. You can see the 3 palms that inspired the whole garden already about 10 years old. The change in ground level is retained by a breeze block wall or left as a soil bank. We used over 85 tonnes of rockery stone to retain different areas of this sloping hillside site.
Right - 2000 the stone banks form a living rock face and curve around the stream, patio waterfall and pond.
Below left - 2007 from the same angle as right. Ferns and moss soften the stone, bamboo and other exotic plants surround the patio and stream breaking up the long open views.
Top left - the three plams were planted about 10 years before we came to work on this garden. We made the most of the level changes to create dramatic rock faces and terraces.
Right - 2001. The pond takes its shape from the curving rock face. The small viewing deck on the right of the photo overhangs the pond and is curved to match the terraces behind it.
Below left - 2007 the plants have taken over!
Top left - water is pumped out of the pond from a submersable pump and into a pipe that runs back into the top of the waterfall.
Below left - you can see the concrete former for the top catch pool where the water re-enters before spilling over the fall into the main catchpool (the circular concrete shape below) before it goes on to a stream.
Top centre - all traces of pond liner have gone and the stone has started to mellow.
Top right - the stones have darkened down, moss and other plants have grown on them and between them. The small fall where the water enters the stream makes a soft rushing sound mixing subtley with the crashing main fall.
Below centre left - the stream flows under a bridge an over yet another fall into the pond.
Below centre right - view from the top of the main fall.
Below right - ferns love the moisture in the air around waterfalls.
Top left - this peacock slate patio is right next to the waterfall and stream (on right of photo), overhung by and surrounded by exotic plants. At RGC we take care to fit comfortable seating areas into the most dramatic parts of the garden bringing you into close contact.
Top centre - multi layered views are one of our favourite design features, this one looks through the gold stemmed bamboo to the lush foliage overhanging the waterfall.
Top right - sunlight filters through the banana clumps down to the ginger in the foreground.
Below left - the entrance to the jungle from the desert.
Below right - a Trithrinax palm with spiny trunk is in the foreground with heavily scented orange ginger flowers behind. The cinammon coloured bark of a strawberry tree can be seen in the background.
Top left - June. A tall clump of Cordyline australis has spikey Aloe striatula growing at its base with orange/yellow flowers and bright carpets of Lampranthus.
Top centre -in March the yellow bell shaped flowers of a small tree Sophora microphylla hang over the red tipped braches of Leucadendron 'Safari Sunset' with a palm Chamaerops humilis on the left. The juvenile silver foliage of Eucalyptus nitens is in the background with Agavae ferox in the front.
Top right - red spikes of Kniphofia 'Alcazar' with blue heads of Agapanthus africanus behind, Agave ferox and Yucca whipplei are in the foregound.
Below left - a wider photo of the desert plants in full flower in mid summer.
Below right - a very early shot of the desert before the 13 assorted eucalyptus and Acacia trees and cordylines had grown tall. The 4m tall spikes of blue Echium flowers frame the left of this photo.
