A client in Slovenia found us online, sent through a brief for their front and back garden, and we designed the whole scheme without ever setting foot on the site. No site visits, just drawings, conversations and a shared understanding of how they wanted to live outside. The finished design is a testament of what online garden design can actually deliver, so let’s walk through how it came together.
The client wanted the front and back gardens treated as one connected scheme rather than two unrelated spaces. The brief was contemporary: naturalistic planting, warm materials, clearly defined zones, and a layout that could take a few longer-term additions, including a sauna and an outdoor training setup. They chose our signature garden package, which covered a full concept plan, a detailed layout, a planting scheme, a lighting plan, and technical drawings a local landscaper could build straight from.
Designing a garden remotely: how the process worked
image: House Designer
It began with our garden design questionnaire and a video consultation to talk through the detail. This client knew their priorities from the first conversation, which is always the thing that makes a remote project run well. Distance has never been the obstacle people assume. What matters is understanding the plot and understanding the people who will use it, and both of those travel perfectly well over a video call and a set of measured drawings.
With their preference for a contemporary style and a sense of uniformity across the two gardens, I built the concept around clearly defined areas, each with its own purpose. A secluded relaxing area with swings. A fire pit. A cooling plunge pool for after the sauna. An outdoor dining space. Everything is tied together by a consistent palette of warm natural materials, stone, timber and low-maintenance paving, with planting that carries year-round interest without demanding constant attention.
From there I developed a lighting plan across the terrace, the planting borders and the key structural elements, enough to extend the garden into the evenings and give it atmosphere after dark, without over-lighting it.
The features I enjoyed designing most
Four parts of this design stood out: the main terrace and pergola, the training zone, the fire pit, and the cooling pool paired with the sauna.
West-facing terrace with pergola
image: House Designer
At the rear of the house, the terrace does most of the work, so I treated it as the primary outdoor living space. Its west-facing aspect means it holds the light into the evening, which is exactly where you want people to gather. A pergola gives shade without closing the space off, and it is designed to take climbing planting over time, so the canopy grows greener and more enclosed as the garden matures. Positioned it to connect straight to the interior, so it feels as an extension of the house.
Training zone that belongs in the design
image: House Designer
The client asked for a monkey bar and training setup, and was clear it should feel like part of the garden, not something wedged into a spare corner. I gave it its own defined zone, set slightly apart from the terrace so the two areas feel distinct in purpose, but linked by the same materials and planting. Designing around how someone actually lives is the whole point, and a feature like this only works when it sits inside the layout rather than fighting it.
Fire pit and curved seating
image: House Designer
One of my favourite details. A circular fire pit with curved timber seating set into a gravel surround, giving a completely different mood to the terrace, more informal, more intimate, its own destination within the garden. These secondary spaces are what separate a designed garden from one that is just a patio and some lawn. Somewhere to drift to in the evening, and through the colder months, gives a garden a social life that gets used far more than most people expect.
Cold plunge pool and sauna
image: House Designer
Rather than a conventional leisure pool, the client thought carefully about long-term use and chose a cooling pool paired with a sauna. It is a smaller, more deliberate arrangement, rooted in the Scandinavian idea of contrast bathing, something more homeowners have been asking us about in recent years. I designed both together and positioned them so the space is fully prepared for installation later, with no compromises needed when the time comes.
The planting scheme: naturalistic structure, year-round interest
image: House Designer
The client wanted naturalistic planting held within defined zones, which is a combination that works beautifully in a contemporary garden. You get the clarity of a planned layout, while the planting itself reads as loose and organic rather than clipped and controlled. Here is how I built the scheme, layer by layer, because the structure is what makes a naturalistic garden hold together rather than drift into mess.
The bones come from multi-stem trees. Multi-stem Betula utilis var. jacquemontii brings the white winter bark that keeps the garden alive in the coldest months, and Acer griseum, the paperbark maple, adds peeling cinnamon bark for close-up interest. Acer ‘Crimson King’ carries deep purple foliage through summer, with a single Magnolia ‘Genie’ for its dark red spring flowers. I also worked in a small productive layer, apple ‘Christmas Pippin’, apple ‘James Grieve’ and a self-fertile plum ‘Victoria’, because an edible element earns its place in a family garden.
image: House Designer
The structural shrubs give the scheme its year-round frame. Viburnum x burkwoodii ‘Anne Russell’ for scented spring flower, Hydrangea aspera ‘Macrophylla’ and ‘Polestar’ for their long late-summer display, upright Berberis ‘Helmond Pillar’ for vertical purple accents, and flowering quince, Chaenomeles ‘Geisha Girl’, for early colour. If you want to understand the evergreen structure I rely on, our guide to the best evergreen plants for UK gardens covers the principle.
Above and around them, the perennials and grasses bring the movement. Liriope muscari and ‘Monroe White’ for shade-tolerant autumn flower, Agapanthus ‘Windsor Grey’, Allium ‘Lavender Bubbles’ and Paeonia ‘Bowl of Cream’ threaded through for seasonal highlights. The grasses do the quiet heavy lifting, Hakonechloa macra, Japanese forest grass, softening the edges, Carex buchananii for bronze winter tone, and Calamagrostis brachytricha for its feathered autumn plumes. At ground level, Polystichum ferns hold the shadier corners together.
The colour scheme stays true to the brief throughout: greens and natural tones, nothing saturated, nothing competing with the materials.
The finished garden design
image: House Designer
This garden project was designed with the future built in. It feels complete, not because there is no room to grow, but because every part of it has a reason to be there. The terrace draws you outside in the evening light. The planting softens the whole scheme without overdoing it. The fire pit gives you somewhere to end up once the sun goes down. The trees do quiet structural work you notice more with every passing year.
Remote garden design, across the UK and internationally
The part we enjoy most about how our studio works is that a client does not need to be around the corner for the process to feel close. This international client found us online, and the whole project ran remotely from the first conversation to the final drawings.
Distance is not the limiting factor homeowners assume. What makes a design work is understanding the space, understanding the people who will live in it, and getting the right team involved at every stage. Whether you are planning a full redesign or want to make better use of an existing space, our online garden design service works wherever you are. You can see more in our garden design projects.
Ready to start your own garden? View our garden design packages and work with our team from anywhere.