School Garden Design in Wandsworth

Brief

This wildlife friendly school garden in Southfields, London is divided up into sections and includes an area for swings as well as a wildlife friendly water feature and railway sleeper raised beds and bench.

Solution

This part of the school garden is slightly disheveled and under utilised. There is a weaved willow tunnel which is overgrown and a patchy section of grass that is often very muddy. Several features in the space are to be retained including the greenhouse, mature tree and curved path.

The new design is structured to create several distinct areas, each with their own focal points, which can accommodate small groups of children. The overall focus of the space will be to encourage wildlife. The section adjoining the existing mature tree will be laid with lawn and feature a selection of swings. Leading from this area will be a new path designed to create a journey through the space. This path will be constructed from a mixture of paving slabs and stone ‘planks’, interspersed with gravel and ground cover plants. Adjacent to the new path will be a series of wire gabions of increasing size, each one dressed with a different decorative filler such as logs, bricks or bark to encourage colonisation by bugs and insects. Oak planks secured to the top of each gabion will allow children to use them as seats.

The main section of the garden will feature an L-shaped raised bed with integrated benches and a small raised wildlife pond, with a multi stemmed amelanchier tree in a pot behind. The flooring will be a mixture of paving slabs, small pebbles and creeping plants. Solid oak cubes and filled gabions will provide additional seating in the area.

A second pathway from this section will fork left to join the main path or right towards a new railway sleeper raised bed positioned to tie in to the existing vegetable garden. All of the planting will be wildlife friendly, with shrubs and flowers that flower primarily in spring or late summer into autumn.

Contact us today to discuss your project with our team of experienced school garden designers!

Contact Earth Designs to discuss your own school garden makeover, or browse our website to see more examples by our garden designer in Wandsworth.