Sylvia is a visual artist who loves working with paint and textiles. Her brief was for a cottage garden with a casual, relaxed feel with lots of flowers and movement and pink! Sylvia also told us that she wanted lots of shade as she “does not do sun”. We created a gently curving ramp to connect the driveway to the rear of the house without cluttering the new pergola. This ramp connects seamlessly with a path leading to Sylvia’s Sanctuary where an arbour provides additional shade. Deciduous trees were selected to provide garden shade in summer, whilst allowing light into the house during winter. As Sylvia is a self-described 'casual gardener', our plant palette focussed on easy to maintain perennials that do not require much pruning. No espalier here! Given Sylvia’s desire to have flowers “everywhere”, flowering plants climb up the arbour and hang from baskets suspended from the pergola. We relocated Sylvia’s roses to her sanctuary, where we also retained a magnolia and installed a bird bath for her viewing pleasure from either her bedroom or the arbour. Sylvia loves ornamental crab apples; we went one better and suggested edible crab apples that will look AND taste good!