Planting schemes and borders
Planting is what makes a garden a garden — structure for winter, fullness for June, and soil preparation that makes both possible.
We design and plant gardens whose planting does the heavy lifting: structure through winter, succession through summer, and year-on-year fullness on soil that was prepared properly before a single plant went in.
This is planting design, not plant retail. Every scheme is drawn for your light, your soil and the time you want to spend in the border — including schemes chosen to need very little of you.
Structure first, then the layers
A planting scheme is built like the garden itself: the structural layer first — hedging, clipped forms, specimen trees, the bones that hold the garden in February — then the seasonal layers beneath. We design with how the garden looks from your windows, not just from the lawn.
We favour generous, restful planting over busy ones: fewer species, better repeated, with long seasons built from foliage as much as flower.
Plants chosen for the ground you actually have
Hertfordshire and Essex gardens grow on a range of soils — heavy clay around Great Dunmow and Chelmsford, chalk around Cambridge and the Walden country, and thin, compacted ground on new build estates around Bishop’s Stortford and Harlow. We test, improve and, where needed, replace soil before planting, because nothing survives long in builder’s rubble.
On exposed sites around Buntingford we design windbreak planting as part of the scheme, so the garden can grow up sheltered.
Schemes that do not need a gardener on retainer
The right plants in the right soil largely look after themselves. We build schemes around reliable, long-lived perennials, grasses and shrubs that peak in succession and need one tidy a year rather than constant care — and we set out, in plain language, what each plant will do in five years.
We are a design and build company; our part is drawing a scheme that does not need much care.
When is the best time to plant?
Container-grown plants go in almost all year if watered; bare-root trees, hedging and many perennials are best planted November to March. We plan planting around your build programme.
Will you plant a garden you did not design?
Sometimes, if the scheme works with the site. More often we are asked to replant tired borders as part of a wider garden design, which is where the best results come from.
How quickly will it look full?
Most schemes look good in the first season and properly full by year three — specimen trees and hedging give instant structure from day one.
Do you look after the planting once it is in?
No — Conway is a design and construction company. We deliberately plant schemes that do not need us, and leave you a simple care guide for the first two years.
Can you source large specimen trees?
Yes, from specialist nurseries, with rootball handling and aftercare specified. Specimens are usually the highest-value plants in a scheme, so we plant them carefully.
Start your project
Arrange a design visit and we will walk the garden with you, listen to how you want to live in it, and set out what a design and build would involve.