new drive and entrance, Dorset
I was asked to design the front entrance area and drive for this delightful Arts and Crafts house in Dorset. As you can see from the ‘before’ photo (below), the original entrance was a steep tarmac drive, with a metre height difference between the left and right sides of the house, which ‘featured’ a slightly bizarre oval fish pond in the centre.
It’s funny how you get so used to your own things that you can’t see them clearly any more, and one of the many advantages of getting a designer in is that they will come to a site fresh and with no emotional tie to it. (As a matter of interest, if you want to try to ‘see’ your plot fresh, a quick tip is to take a photograph and then, making it as large as you can print it, have a look at it in a mirror. For a very brief moment you will see it with new eyes and it may well be that you can identify straight away what’s working and what’s not).
When I first saw saw this house, I knew immediately that I wanted to create a level area in front of the house, which would involve dropping the levels on the far side, and raising them towards the entrance gate. I also wanted to create something that was more in keeping with the period house, simple but grander, and create a sense of enclosure and arrival (yes I know, front doors again!). The mock-up that I produced (above) shows the design, with a beech hedge creating the enclosure, raised brick beds either side of the front door, and a simple circular lawn.
We’re now into about the 4th week of construction, and you can see already how much better the house looks. The levels have been sorted, the new brick beds are pretty much made, and the drive foundations are down.
I am now working on the planting design! As you can see from the plan, I’d like the curved-edged beds at the top of the drive to have some formal specimen trees – to give enclosure to the upper drive, but more importantly to reinforce the new grander approach to the house. I haven’t quite decided what these trees should be yet – I’m toying with either evergreen Prunus laurocerasus Otto Luyken, a pretty laurel with large white flowers in spring, or perhaps more of an ‘avenue’ tree – Corylus colurna (the Turkish hazel) though I think this might get too large. Either way, I want to underplant with green and white foliage and flowers - white daffodils, wood anemones and pulmonaria for spring, white edged hostas with japanese anemones and posh cow parsley (Anthriscus ravenswing) for later in the season.
