Mr. Barbour, Ian, from Guisborough, Cleveland, Teesside wanted to update his tired, dated looking garden landscape. After a consultation with us, where we looked through various samples of patio stones and many different types of water features, Mr & Mrs Barbour decided to opt for Desert Sandstone for their patio area and a contemporary Granite Water Feature.

We also discussed and decided to construct a small wall and steps from split faced buff bricks and the desert sandstone. Plum coloured slate was chosen for around the water feature and coloured pebbles, these look great when wet and dry. We also decided to opt for some rustic cobbled edging around the water feature just to further enhance it and draw the eye to it from a distance.

The design of the patio was fairly straight forward. Ian had decided he wanted to keep the original cobble edging that had been round his existing patio. We laid the patio within this existing cobbled edge shape. We like to use various cuts and sizes of dessert sandstone within patios we construct. The differing sizes make the patio more attractive and interesting than using the same sizes over and over again. Dessert sand stone is a beautiful patio stone and lends itself well to being placed like this. This particular sand stone is yellow and peachy/pink tones. There are also fossils within the stone too, giving it an interesting and unusual appearance. Sandstone is a very pretty patio stone, has a smooth texture and a soft, pleasing appearance to the eye.
Testimonial:

Dear Andy & The lads,

Thank you so much for our new garden. The patio, wall, steps and water feature have made such a dramatic difference to our garden. We would recommend you and your lads to our friends any day. We were impressed with the speed you worked, your attention to detail and how helpful and caring you all were. Thanks again.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. & Mrs Barbour.
Guisborough, Cleveland, Teesside.

This landscape garden was a little bit different. The customer, Chris, wanted to re-design and implement a new patio area at the rear of his house but wanted it to be a surprise for his wife's birthday. This meant building the patio, retaining walls, raised beds and steps whilst his wife was away on business.

This gave me just over a week to start and complete the entire job! It also meant starting and finishing on very specific dates and working to a tight schedule.

Chris said his wife had always longed for something a little bit different in her garden, she had a love of butterflies and dragonflies. She has always wanted a circular patio feature that would stand out from the garden.

We chose Ral Green Sandstone paving for the patio area, this has nicely understated green, grey and taupe brown colours in it. We also suggested a dragonfly patio centre piece as the patio's focal feature and it is a circular patio. We felt sure that Chris's wife would love this. Chris agreed. A large, colourful, graceful dragonfly in the middle of the patio would be ideal for his wife, so that's what we did!

On either side of the patio we put in two sweeping, raised flower beds with retaining walls and between them I constructed a step to give access to the newly  turfed area which was on a higher level. The steps were topped off with Raj Green sandstone paving.

We managed to get the landscaping job completed before Chris's wife, Jane returned home from her business trip, much to her surprise and delight!

Testimonial

"Hi Andy. I just wanted to let you know how incredibly happy and grateful both me and Jane are for the amazing job you did of transforming our garden. The patio is brilliant. Jane loves the dragonfly feature. It looks incredible! Jane nearly fainted when I showed her it. This is one surprise she will never forget, that's all down to you. Thank you so very much."

Chris and Jane Bullock

Yarm, Stockton on Tees, Cleveland,Teesside.

This is a beautiful raised wooden decking area which we designed and constructed for Alan and Becky Carney.

This family wanted a child friendly design which they could use as an outdoor eating area.They also wanted a place to entertain their friends on warm Summer evenings. We suggested a raised, wooden decking area for Alan and Becky. Decking areas are much more child friendly than patios. Wood is a softer material to sit on or play on, especially for children. Decking also tends to be more inviting to people due to the smell, colour and texture of wood.

We raised this decked area to make it a more prominent feature of the garden. Two hand rails were built into the decking with newell posts and spindles. Railings were used so that there was no danger of the children falling off or through the decking area.

Railings are a great idea for elderly people too, they lend some support when standing looking at your landscape or when moving around the deck itself.

A large step was constructed going upto this decking, this was so that the children would find it easy to navigate and climb on to the decking. Children and elderly people find larger steps easier to climb.

This decking was completed with an overhanging edge and a deck board fascia, this left the decking looking neat with a professional smooth finish. Light coloured deck boards were chosen by Alan and Becky, wanted the option to change their decking colour at a later date with a deck staining product.

Testimonial

" Dear Andy, Thank you so much for our fabulous decking - we absolutely love it, so do the kids! We've had lots of friends over this Summer for drinks and barbys on our new decking, it's been great! Sam and Louise love playing on the decking. It's a massive relief for me knowing they can play safely. I don't have to chase after them every five minutes. We were really impressed with how quickly you completed our decking and how hard and tidily you all worked and cleaned up after yourselves. Thank you again from all of us! We have already recommended you to our friends who want some decking doing too. "

Alan and Becky Carney

Mandale Road, Acklam, Middlesbrough, Cleveland, Teesside.

This was a great landscaping project for us to carry out, we were really pleased with the end result. It's stunning. We were pretty much given free reign by Derek. He had looked through our porfolio during our consultation. He was happy to trust our design skills.

Derek asked me to help him choose the paving, brick and edging stones. We were happy to do this. We sat and colour matched stones with various samples until we both agreed on the sunrise sandstone paving, southern gold gravel, oatmeal brick work and cobbled edging. All excellent choices which blend perfectly with Derek's current colour scheme of his house brick work.

During consultations, Derek had specifically requested a patio area which he could retreat to. An area where he could read his papers and drink coffee on the summer mornings in peace. With this in mind we designed his patio to sit at the top of his garden. This area is secluded and very quiet.

The main patio (the retreat) and the steps leading up to this are built from the most beautiful sunrise, sand stone patio stones. This particular sandstone is absolutely amazing to look at. It's gorgeous. Extremely vibrant colours bounce out at you. The colours run through the sandstone like a rainbow. This patio stone is one of our favorites, it's a product which looks great dry and fabulous wet. It's very eye catching.

We constructed the steps which descend from the patio also from sunrise sandstone. We used the oatmeal bricks as a border to the steps. The oatmeal colour compliments and enhances the sunrise sandstone.

We designed and constructed the steps from the patio to become narrower as you walk down the patio. This gives a flowing movement to the patio and when walking up to the patio it is very inviting when the area under foot increases.

We also built a path of sunrise sandstone along the side of Derek's house. This pathway leads to another circular patio. This circular patio is outside Derek's French windows. This patio area will be used by the whole family in the Summer, They will eat breakfast together here.

As you can see, we have cut the sandstone of the path way leading to the circular patio in different sizes. We did this to add some variation to the style and design of the path. A pathway in my opinion looks more interesting when things are cut differently. Anyone can have a bog standard paved path.

We opted for Southern gold gravel at the side of the house, this compliments the sunrise sandstone path and patio. Gravel also acts as drainage.

A retaining garden wall was built all around the back of this property too. We built this from the oatmeal bricks. The lawned area of this garden was very steep and sloped. We had to build a retaining wall to hold all the earth and lawned area in.We thoroughly enjoyed this job it was great to see the changes taking place and the end result looks fantastic!

Testimonial

" Hi Andy, Many thanks for all the hard work and effort you put into my beautiful secluded retreat, it's just how I imagined it to be. I love sitting out here on a morning or evening reading my books and drinking my coffee or wine. Everybody has complimented the work and said what a huge improvement it is to the garden. Thank you for listening to me and spending the time helping me choose the right stones. I'd have been lost without you. I've never spent so much time outdoors! "

Derek Mallam

Hammond Close, Marton, Middlesbrough, Cleveland, Teesside.

This was a quite a large landscaping job. It involved a lot of landscaping design, planning and construction. Andy and Ali also wanted us to help them accessorise the completed landscape with pots and hanging flower baskets.

Andy is a very keen gardener and has a great knowledge of flowers and plants. We really enjoyed working with him on this landscaping project. We bounced lots of ideas off each other throughout the process. He was equally as enthusiastic as we came up with some stunning ideas.

After carrying out a brick match with the property, we built a new wall around the front of the propery with pillars linked by wrought iron railings. We had the railings and the gates made by a local iron monger, they were stunning quality. The new railings were built into the brick wall.

We constructed larger brick pillars on either side of the block paved driveway entrance. These were to hang their new wrought iron gates on. Andy and Ali's house is an end house. We felt it was a better idea to have more secure gates for their property. Also large iron gates give a grand and more private feel to any property.

We block paved the path around the whole of the property using brindle block paving with a flowing charcoal block paved edge. The block paved areas were laid in a 90 degree herring bone pattern, which is a traditional block paving pattern.The large driveway was also block paved using the same herring bone design in the same colour paving blocks as the paths.

We shaped the block paving at the front of the property to incorporate a flowing curve, which allowed me to give the front lawn a more interesting shape when we laid the new lawn turf.

Square turf lawns always look dull and sterile. We would always recommend giving curvaceous shape to newly laid turf where possible, it is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. New turf was laid at the side and rear of the property too.

We constructed a connecting decking area from the block paved driveway to the rear garden. This decking incorporated handrails and steps. This broke up the hard feel of the block paving and gave a more interesting look and feel to the overall design of the landscaped garden. The decking area also stood out as a feature of the newly designed and landscaped garden.

We designed various feature areas for Andy's plants and pots. We supplied Andy and Ali with a variation of my beautiful and bespoke pots for their garden. We have a wonderful selection of pots and garden accessories. They were spoilt for choice.

We fixed brackets for hanging baskets on the outer walls in various places around the property. We also built  several small feature areas in the front lawn for bedding plants and shrubs to help make the garden come alive.

When this landscaping project was completed even we were astounded. It was a total transformation of their previous garden. It looked stunning. We regularly pop past Andy and Ali's as they change their flower displays each season and really it is a superb example of how a garden can look if landscaped by a professional who knows what they are doing. I am very proud of this landscaping job and was delighted to hear it had won the garden competition they had entered.

Testimonial

Dear Andy,

My husband and I wanted to thank you and your team at Green Onion landscaping for doing a fantastic job of our block paved drive, lawn,decking, garden pots and baskets.

We absolutely love it. We can’t believe how different and beautiful it all looks. You and your team worked closely with us every step of the way and we appreciate that.

Since the job was completed, our garden looked so impressive we were actually entered into a local best garden competition and we won!

Thank you once again for all your time and commitment.

Yours sincerely,

Mr and Mrs A. Portious.

Mitford Cresent, Bishopsgarth, Stockton on Tees, Cleveland, Teesside.