You've seen the show gardens, now here's how an RHS Chelsea award-winner designs her own garden, at home

Sarah Naybour decided to turn an uninspiring garden into her personal sanctuary with areas to relax and beautiful flowers. Read on to discover how she brought her outdoor space to life.

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As an award-winning garden designer at RHS Chelsea and Chatsworth, Sarah Naybour is no stranger to transforming small sites into standout spaces. So, when she moved into her new-build in Oxford, she couldn’t wait to use her horticultural expertise to plan her own garden revamp.

‘There was only turf and some paving when I arrived,’ Sarah explains. ‘The plot is around 9x18 metres on sandy soil and is south facing which makes it lovely and sunny all day long, but we couldn’t make the most of it as it was.’

The project

Sarah had a clear vision for the space from the start. ‘I wanted to make a gravel garden,’ she says. ‘I was inspired by garden designer and author, Beth Chatto, who built a famous garden in Norfolk on an old gravel pit. I was drawn to her clever use of plants that would naturally thrive in lean conditions and self-seed.’

In addition to creating a garden that looked good, Sarah wanted a functional space with zoned areas for outdoor dining, relaxing in the sun and cosying up by the fire at night. ‘I wanted room for a table and chairs, firepit and sun loungers, alongside trees and wildlife-friendly plants,’ she says.

What we did

Wanting the option to eat al fresco, Sarah extended the terrace outside the kitchen to create a dining area and broadened the path outside the lounge with matching paving. ‘Extending meant we had plenty of room to seat eight people and cook on the barbecue,’ says Sarah.

The most labour-intensive part of the makeover was removing the grass to make room for the gravel garden, something Sarah says is a lot more complex than it looks. ‘You can’t just throw down a layer of gravel and hope that it will work,’ she says.

‘You need to prepare the ground to support people walking on it and heavy furniture. We used pea shingle, which is comfortable to walk on, and reinforced it with a product called core gravel, a stabilising system consisting of honeycomb structures, so it could support heavy furniture. I didn’t reinforce areas around the furniture as I wanted to free these spots up for plants.’

Bringing in natural elements was crucial to softening the look of the space and for this, Sarah took an organic approach. ‘I gravel- mulched the surrounding flower beds to make it look more natural and allowed plants to self-seed,’ she explains. ‘I kept some of the lawn but added trees to the area.’

Highs and lows

For plantswoman Sarah, the plot’s sandy soil was something she came up against. ‘It was very dry with few nutrients,’ she explains. This meant that Sarah had to carefully consider these conditions when selecting plants for the space. ‘Salvia, iris, lavender, fig, geranium, allium, and kitchen herbs all work well,’ she says.

With the hard graft done and dusted, Sarah says the best bit was bringing colour to the space. She chose a scheme of soft yellow – with Sisyrinchium striatum and Rosa ‘Teasing Georgia’ – and magenta – with Peony ‘Karl Rosenfeld’ and geranium sanguineum ‘Ankum’s pride.’ To soften the gravel, she went with Pennisetum thunbergii ‘red buttons’ and Dianthus carthusianorum.

The final details

'My gardens at RHS Chelsea taught me a lot about what you can fit into a small space and I’m happy I could apply those lessons to my own garden.'

For a final flourish, Sarah planted a beech hedge on the boundary of the lawn. ‘I wanted to keep part of the lawn for my dog, Maddie,’ says Sarah, ‘but I was keen to add a hedge to add interest and texture to the area. Beech grows relatively quickly as long as you feed and water it regularly. It only needs one prune in August, and it keeps its leaves over winter.’

Reflecting on the final look, Sarah says she couldn’t be happier. ‘I am thrilled with the finished result,’ says Sarah. ‘My gardens at RHS Chelsea taught me a lot about what you can fit into a small space and I’m happy I could apply those lessons to my own garden. I love that I now have different zoned areas. It’s a real sanctuary in a very small space.’

Feature and photos Lynn Keddie/GAP Interiors