Landscape plan for four rural dwellings

The brief

The Landscape Workshop was commissioned to prepare a detailed landscape plan to discharge a planning condition on a consented residential scheme of four dwellings on a small rural plot. The plan needed to set a clear structural planting framework around the new dwellings, retain the existing hedge and mature trees that defined the site’s rural edge, and contribute genuine biodiversity uplift through both hard and soft landscape choices.

Our approach

The four dwellings sit around a shared central court, with vehicular and pedestrian access from a single point off the lane. We worked with the design team to soften the new built form against the existing field pattern: front-garden planting in front of each plot, hedge planting between plots to define the private garden boundaries without resorting to fencing as the primary edge, woodland-style native tree planting along the northern and western field boundaries, and a feature SuDS pond integrated into the southern corner with marginal wetland planting and floating water lily species.

The detail

Hard landscape choices included permeable block paving for the shared courtyard and access spurs, with three-bin refuse storage discreetly placed within the planting framework. The planting schedule called out species and pot sizes for each role: hedgerow species (hawthorn, hornbeam, field maple, guelder rose, wayfaring tree and field maple) for the structural hedge framework; front-garden mixed native trees and hedges for the plot frontages; and a tightly specified pond and pond-margin planting palette — white water lily, low-bowed duckweed frogbit, water soldier, water violet, spiked water-millet, marsh marigold, and meadowsweet — to give the SuDS feature both ecological value and year-round visual interest.