Garden landscaping and makeovers in Mansfield and Nottinghamshire.

Every garden starts with a conversation, not a catalogue. The aim is a garden that fits the way you live in it, built so it lasts.

1. Free site visit

Lucian walks the garden with you, measures up and listens: how you use the space, what you want to keep, where the sun falls and what the budget is.

2. Layout and materials

We talk through the layout, levels, drainage and materials on site, with samples, so you can picture the finished garden before anything is dug.

3. One fixed, written price

The quote sets out each part of the work, so you can see what is included and, if needed, build the garden in stages.

4. Build and clear-up

The same team handles groundwork, walls, paving, lawn, planting and lighting, and leaves the garden clean and tidy at the end.

Garden landscaping splits into two halves, and a good garden balances both. We do both, so they are planned together rather than one squeezed around the other.

Hard landscaping

The built structure: patios, paths, steps, retaining walls, edging, driveways and anything else in stone, brick, timber or concrete. It sets the levels and the layout, so it is built first.

Soft landscaping

The living parts: lawns, new turf or artificial grass, beds, borders, hedges, shrubs and trees. It softens the structure, brings colour and changes with the seasons.

Yes, and it is often what turns an awkward garden into a usable one. A slope can be cut into terraces: a level patio by the house, steps down to a flat lawn, and planting on the banks in between. Soil taken out of one level can often be reused to build up another, which saves on grab lorry loads.

Each change in level needs a retaining wall, and a retaining wall has to hold back a surprising weight of wet soil. We build them in brick, block or timber sleepers, with drainage behind the wall so water cannot build up and push it over. Taller walls, or walls near a building or a boundary, need more careful design. A garden wall next to a road over 1 m high, or elsewhere over 2 m, normally needs planning permission.

The right plant in the right place does better and needs less work. Much of the ground around Mansfield and Ashfield is heavy clay, which is rich in nutrients but wet in winter and hard in summer, so we improve the soil in new beds and choose plants that cope with it.

We look at which way the garden faces, where it is shaded and how much time you want to spend on it. Hedges and shrubs give structure all year, perennials and grasses bring colour, and raised beds in sleepers or brick make planting easier to reach and to look after.

Lighting lets you use the garden on summer evenings and makes steps and level changes safer after dark. Low-voltage lights set into steps, walls and decking, or spiked uplights under a tree, are subtle and cheap to run.

The time to plan it is at the design stage. Cables are ducted under paving and through beds before they are finished, so nothing has to be lifted later. Any new outdoor mains circuit must be installed and certified by a qualified electrician.