John Gilbert

The brief for this garden was to create an oasis in the city with an eastern flavour and a dedicated space for meditation. I based the wooden pavilion on traditional Balinese ‘bales’ and used ‘exotics’ such as bamboo, banana and palms as well as more traditional planting.

In this town garden the emphasis was on clean, simple lines with strong, mixed planting around the boundaries. A low-maintenance garden which will look good all year round.

This was a garden that had lost its way and seemed much smaller than it actually was. The pronounced slope away from the house made it possible to divide the garden into discrete areas at descending levels, thus increasing the sense of space and making it feel much more interesting.

Some gardens involve more work than others. Sometimes the planting is all that needs attention. In other gardens new hard landscaping can be incorporated within existing planting which is then added to and improved. In some cases, as in the one below, the site has to be completely cleared and a new garden built from scratch.

We are very experienced at designing, building and planting all kinds and very used to working in difficult conditions where access and movement are restricted.

John and Curtis & Curtis Landscapes won a bronze medal at the 2005 Chelsea Flower Show for a city garden called ‘Work, Rest and Play’. Built from traditional materials, it was designed to make the maximum use of every square centimetre of a tiny urban space.

John Gilbert and his wife Lynne open their own North London garden to the public on a June weekend every year. These pictures were taken this year on June 10th just before visitors began to arrive. All proceeds go to the various charities supported by the National Gardens Scheme. For details visit www.ngs.org.uk or see the Yellow Book, which is published annually and lists thousands of gardens which are open for viewing across England and Wales.

The ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures here show what a transformation good design and high quality landscaping work can achieve. This garden is, in fact, a work in progress: the tree and shrub planting has been done and the perennials will be put in next spring.

Garden designers love steps because changes of level can be exploited to make even the smallest garden more interesting. For those with mobility problems, however, they can be a nightmare. We redesigned this garden for a young wheelchair user.

The ‘before’ picture shows the majority of the garden completely cut off from her; now she can scoot up the ramp on to the lawn and thus get at the whole garden.

Many clients want their children to be able to play in the garden and we have great fun creating exciting spaces for them. Safety is always a high priority and we take special care to exclude plants that are poisonous or irritant from our planting schemes where there are very small children.

Purpose-built structures like this one, which combine climbing, sliding and swinging with a playhouse are highly popular at the moment. We installed this earlier this summer on a bed of sterilised wood bark to ensure a soft landing. It has been heavily used from day one…

The play equipment was sited at the bottom of the garden. The remainder of the plot was also completely redesigned so that the children could have a lawn for games while adults could sit and relax amongst attractive shrub and perennial planting.

The ‘before’ picture shows a garden laid out very much for adults; now it has a good-sized lawn for football and other games.
The planting has been designed to be robust and child-tolerant!

Another garden designed with children in mind: here the lawn provides a child-friendly surface. In this case the client was keen for the play area to be clearly visible from the house.