About Groundwork

A four-person garden design practice in Bath, planting for the site rather than the photograph.

The practice

Gardens that improve with age

“Anybody can make a garden look good in its first June. The work is making it look better in its fifth.”

Groundwork is four people working across Bath and North Somerset — two designers and two on the tools, all of whom have been here more than six years. We design, build and then maintain, which is deliberate: the practices that only design never find out whether their planting actually worked.

Most of this area sits on thin limestone soil that drains far too freely. A great deal of our work is persuading people out of schemes that want moisture the site cannot give them, and towards planting that will still be thriving in a dry August without irrigation.

How we work

Three habits that shape every drawing we produce.

Survey the soil before drawing anything

We dig three holes and check drainage before a single line is drawn. It is unglamorous, takes an afternoon, and prevents the most expensive category of mistake.

Keep what is already good

A mature hedge or an established tree is worth more than anything we could plant in its place. Clearing a site for the sake of a clean drawing is a designer serving themselves.