A small town garden in Cobham

Paul Studholme designed a small town garden in Cobham, Surrey, which was divided into separate rooms, using three feature plants to break up the space and pleached hornbeams to screen the neighbouring properties. The planting sits on good loamy soil. The Plant Hunter is based in East Horsley and works across Surrey.

Who this is for: owners of small town or cottage gardens who want the space to feel larger and more considered, or divided into areas rather than read as one square plot.

The brief

The aim was to divide a small town garden in Cobham into separate rooms so it did not read as one square space, and to screen the neighbouring properties on the side. In a small garden, the division is what gives it interest and makes it feel larger than it is.

The planting

Three feature plants, which were set out to triangulate across the garden and break up the view as you look down it, do the structural work. An Arbutus unedo, the strawberry tree, was the client's choice for its evergreen properties and a gnarly stem that grows more characterful over time. A Cornus kousa sits halfway down, and an Amelanchier lamarckii stands as the third feature. As Paul puts it:

"The three feature plants have really broken the garden up. They interrupt the view nicely and give it a staggered view, so it is not just a square garden."

Pleached hornbeams screen the neighbours along the side. In the front there is a Prunus serrula, the Tibetan cherry, which is multi-stem with shiny peeling bark, and the client specified dwarf pines herself. Towards the back are Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight', Salvia 'Caradonna' and Nepeta, with Trachelospermum jasminoides and the evergreen Clematis 'Avalanche' climbing the fences.

The conditions

The soil here is loamy, the best of any of these gardens. It is good ground to plant into, which gives the scheme a strong start.

The outcome

A small garden that feels larger than its footprint. The three feature plants stagger the view and divide it into rooms, the pleached hornbeams give privacy, and the planting carries interest from front to back.

Overhead view of a small town garden in Cobham showing the space divided into rooms by structural planting

Small town garden in Cobham with layered planting softening slatted screens and raised beds, designed by Paul Studholme

Looking back to the house across a small town garden in Cobham, with a feature tree over white Hydrangea beside the terrace

Peeling mahogany bark of a multi-stem Prunus serrula in a Cobham front garden designed by Paul Studholme

Arbutus unedo, the strawberry tree, over white Hydrangea in a small town garden in Cobham

Nepeta in flower with a butterfly in a Cobham garden designed by Paul Studholme

Trachelospermum jasminoides and Clematis ‘Avalanche’ climbing a slatted screen

Mixed border along a gravel path in a small town garden in Cobham, designed by Paul Studholme

Stepping-stone path leading through dense planting from front to back of a Cobham garden

Paving meeting a gravel margin in a small town garden in Cobham

Paul Studholme tending Nepeta in a densely planted border in a small town garden in Cobham, Surrey

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