The enquiries arrive in April and the request is nearly always the same: can it be done for the summer. Sometimes it can. Often the honest answer is that starting in April is the worst time to ask.
Design takes six to nine weeks before anyone digs
Survey, concept, revisions, planting plan, costings. That is six weeks at a minimum and closer to nine if there are decisions to make about levels or drainage. Then the build itself runs four to twelve weeks. April plus fifteen weeks is August.
The gardens that are finished in June were designed the previous autumn.
Winter is a better time to build than people expect
Hard landscaping does not mind the cold. Stone can be laid in February. Walls can be built in January. What stops work is standing water and frozen ground, and in most of the south that is a handful of days rather than a season.
The other advantage is that you are not living around a building site through the months you actually want to be outside.
Plant in autumn if you possibly can
Bare-root hedging goes in between November and March and costs a fraction of the containerised equivalent. Perennials planted in October establish through the winter and come away strongly in spring, with far less watering than a June planting will need.
Our usual shape is design in autumn, build over winter, plant in early spring, and hand over a garden that has had a season to settle before you want to sit in it.
