Build services

It depends far more on complexity than on size. A straightforward patio replacement may take a fortnight. A garden involving excavation, retaining walls, new levels, drainage and joinery will take considerably longer.

A typical mid-sized project in the £20,000 to £40,000 range usually takes around two to four weeks on site. You are given a realistic programme with your quotation, before anything is booked in.

Most of a garden build is work you will never see in the finished result. A typical project runs roughly in this order:

• Clearance and excavation: stripping out the existing garden and digging down to the levels the design requires
• Drainage and services: surface water drainage, plus any ducting for lighting, power or irrigation
• Groundwork and bases: sub-bases and foundations for paving, walls and structures
• Structural landscaping: retaining walls, steps and level changes
• Hard landscaping: paving, walling, edging and driveways
• Joinery and structures: decking, screens, pergolas, garden rooms and outdoor kitchens
• Soft landscaping: topsoil, planting and turf, usually last

The groundwork stage is the least photogenic and the most important. It is what determines whether the paving is still level in ten years.

Yes. We are happy to take on build work from another professional garden designer's plans, and we do so regularly.

The one thing we would say is that we build from fully specified plans. Clients sometimes send through their own sketches or drawings, and those are genuinely useful as a starting point, but we would treat them as inspiration for a design rather than something to build directly from. A sketch does not carry levels, drainage, construction detail or dimensions, and those are exactly the things that determine whether a garden lasts. Working from a properly specified plan is how we make sure you get the garden you are expecting.

Our workmanship is guaranteed for three years.

Separately, the materials we install carry their own manufacturer warranties, and many of these run considerably longer. Some products come with warranties of up to 25 years. We will tell you what applies to the specific materials specified in your garden.

The two cover different things. The manufacturer warranty covers the product itself, while our guarantee covers the way it has been installed. Both matter, and it is worth understanding which is which when comparing quotations.

Considerably less than most people expect, and we work hard at that. How clean, tidy and well organised our sites are is one of the things clients mention most often in their feedback, and we take real pride in it.

We would still rather be straight with you. The first week is the noisiest part of any build. Clearance and excavation generate spoil and noise, and there will usually be a skip or grab lorry, deliveries of stone and aggregate, and machinery on site. After the groundwork stage it becomes noticeably quieter.

We very rarely need to work through the house. In most gardens we can bring materials in and take waste out without going through your living space at all. Where access is genuinely restricted, we will tell you before we start and agree exactly how it will be handled.

We work on site predominantly Monday to Friday, 8am to 4pm. We agree access and parking arrangements with you before we begin, leave the site clean and tidy at the end of every day, and let you know in advance about the noisier stages.

Yes. We build all year round, in all seasons.

Some elements need more careful planning when temperatures drop, and we plan for that rather than downing tools. We use protective awnings for shelter and rain cover where needed, and a frostproof mortar admixture that allows us to keep working down to zero degrees while making sure the mortar still cures properly on paving and walling. We always work to the manufacturer's temperature and weather guidelines for the materials being installed, which is what protects the finish long term.

The only conditions that genuinely stop us are lying snow, and even then work such as excavation can usually carry on.

Autumn and winter are, if anything, an underrated time to have a garden built. It is the part of the year you use the garden least, and starting then means it is ready for the spring rather than being built through it.

Our lead time is currently around three to four months from an accepted quotation to a start on site, though it varies through the season. Spring and early summer are always the busiest.

Allowing around three weeks for the design stage on top of that, it is worth starting the conversation well before the summer you have in mind. Gardens tend to be thought about in April, by which point that year's best slots have usually gone.

Yes to both. We carry £2 million of public liability insurance, and we are a BALI Registered Contractor, a member of the British Association of Landscape Industries, the UK trade body for the landscaping industry.

BALI registration is not something a company can simply pay for. Members are assessed on the quality of their work and the way they run their business before being accepted, and are reassessed periodically to make sure standards are maintained. Members also work to BALI's code of conduct, and there is an independent route for resolving disputes if one ever arises.

For a client, that matters for a straightforward reason. Landscaping is an unregulated trade, and anyone can describe themselves as a landscaper. Registration is an independent check that the company you are letting into your garden, often for several weeks and for a significant sum of money, has been vetted by someone other than itself.

In 2022 our Ridgeway project in Roundhay won the Principal Award at the BALI National Landscape Awards, the highest award in the scheme.

Alongside that, we have built up over 100 five-star Google reviews across more than ten years. We would encourage you to read them. Accreditations tell you a company has been checked, but reviews tell you what it is actually like to have us in your garden for a few weeks.

We have been building gardens across Leeds and Yorkshire since 2007.

Our team covers all aspects of hard landscaping and external joinery in house, including:

• Natural stone and porcelain paving
• Brickwork, walling and raised beds
• Composite, softwood and hardwood decking
• Garden rooms, pergolas and bespoke structures
• Outdoor kitchens
• Fencing and screening
• Turfing and artificial grass
• Driveways, including resin

Keeping the joinery and the landscaping under one roof matters more than it sounds. Where a deck meets a retaining wall, or a garden room meets a terrace, the junction is usually where things go wrong when two trades are working to different programmes.

Your project is run by one of our site managers, who is your day-to-day point of contact throughout the build, with a dedicated team working alongside them. You will know who they are before work begins.

Our team is directly employed rather than assembled from subcontractors for each job, and most have been with us for years. Several of our site managers joined over a decade ago. Liam Pickering, who co-founded the company in 2007, oversees the projects side of the business.