Contemporary garden space

When Rachael Lowe and Graham Fox moved into their new-build house, they were so unimpressed with its soulless garden, they called in the professionals

The problem

‘When we moved into our house, the garden was just this bland mixture of concrete and gravel. I tried to make it look nice with potted herbs and a few tomato plants, but my artistic skills aren’t really up to much – it was just a mess. In the summer, we like to entertain and have lots of barbecues, but the garden was proving to be a bit of an embarrassment. We knew we’d have to spend money to improve and decided we needed professional help.’

What we did

‘A friend had seen a garden design company, Modular (modulargarden.com), on TV and told us all about them, they were so impressed. After speaking to a designer from the company, we knew they would be perfect for us. They provide a full service, from initial design to projectmanaging and carrying out all the work. We are both very busy with work, so we didn’t want to have to take time off to let people in and deal with deliveries – but Modular took care of everything.

‘The whole process was very straightforward. At that initial meeting, we discussed what we wanted: our priorities were a large decked area for entertaining and beds to add some much-needed greenery all year. We then had another consultation before the final budget of £20,000 was set. This included absolutely everything – labour costs, materials and plants – so we knew what to expect with no hidden extras at the end. We then handed responsibility over to the designers and just let them get on with it.