Matt Nichol
Matt Nichol Garden Design is a design practice born from a passion to help home owners get the most from their outside space. Large or small and whatever the style, our design responses are centred firmly on bringing gardens back to life.
We focus on three core elements to ensure success with each and every project we do. Practicality, aesthetics and budget are the critical areas of design consideration that have to be balanced to truly deliver great finished gardens.
Lead designer Matt Nichol is a Registered Member of the Society of Garden Designers and also a Registered Designer with BALI (British Association of Professional Landscapers). He has been designing gardens for twelve years and has an in depth technical understanding of hard landscaping and a wealth of plant knowledge ready to bring any garden back to life.
One of the practices’ most recent projects was the conversion of a small garden belonging to a rather striking and unique modernist building in the heart of Lymm. Build in the 1970’s the property was ahead of it’s time and still demonstrates open plan living at it’s best, (many contemporary building projects today would aspire to the success of this building’s architectural design).
Sadly the garden was less well considered and being laid mainly to lawn, with tall imposing privet hedges it did not inspire the owners at all. The layout did little to invite any exploration or interaction beyond opening the patio doors and the planting offered little sensory stimulation.
The brief was to create a garden, which was easy to care for, but offered a visual feast of texture, colour, scent and movement. It should respond to the architectural heritage of the building and interact with the existing large timber deck, which the clients were very happy with. The feeling within the garden should be one of relaxation and calm.
The design response can of course be seen in the photographs. We believe these illustrate beautifully the balance achieved between modernist hard lines and soft planting. The garden was planted in August 2012 and will obviously improve year on year as the plants become established and grow into their allocated space.
Our design style is very interactive and we always work with our clients to ensure they have options and a full understanding of what we are trying to achieve for them.
An example of this would be the hard landscaping, which was selected to give a more natural feel to the space. Aesthetically it works with the building and on practical level it slows down your journey through the garden. The bespoke slatted trellis is made up of three different panel sizes to create an interesting design feature in one of the critically important elements of the garden.
Our client is delighted with the finished garden and despite the rather wet summer they have already had a great deal of pleasure from the new garden on many levels. We believe we did a great job of bringing this garden back to life!
