Up The Garden Path

Excellent service, Dave and the team really make you feel welcome, take your views and create a brilliant plan. Couldn’t recommend them more!

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend David and his team, whatever type of garden you have. David is so enthusiastic about gardens and has completely transformed ours over the years. Most importantly David really listens to what you want from your garden and Gary and Tommy work so hard to turn it into reality.

David designed our small garden for us and produced and executed an amazing result with his team. What was a sloping jungle is now a relaxing and varied space to enjoy and relax in - decking, paving, fencing, a water feature and planting all completed to a high standard. Gary carried out the work and made sure everything was of the highest standard and consulted us at every step. Rachel in the office was always available and kept us informed of proceedings and checked that we were pleased with the work. I would have no hesitation in recommending this team. Paul and Jayne.

If you want a truly professional, one stop solution to your garden design problems then look no further than Up The Garden Path. From the first contact with Rachel, the initial meeting with David, the landscape team of Gary and Tom to the finished product, I just got the impression that meeting my requirements was the number one aim. No photograph of mine can do the work justice, you have to see the actual garden, but this may give some idea.

Our main priority was that the garden should be easier to maintain and be grand children friendlly. David came to our house and quickly accessed how he could achieve this and how the level differences from front to back and side to side could be better incorporated into the design. David's design meet all our requirements and the now completed garden gives us great pleasure.

David came up with an excellent design to transform our boring back garden. He's very enthusiastic about what he does with some great ideas and was very forthcoming with tips etc. The itemised build sheet detailing sizes and quantity of wood etc for the various structures was very useful when building them yourself. We will be getting him back to do the planting once I've completed the groundwork.

Upthegardenpath have completely changed the yard at the back of my house into a little courtyard where I can sit with my grandson and enjoy the outdoors. They have made it private from my neighbours and I am extremely pleased with the result. David and the gardener, Gary, who did the work were all friendly and thoughtful and the work was done quickly and well. Thank you.

Having done 5 gardens from scratch every time I said I would love to have a garden designed. Now on garden number 6 and some 44 years later I have. On his first visit David's ideas for our shallow long plot were brilliant. His visit to survey and draw a plan happened on a beautiful sunny day and by the end of the afternoon my garden was there on paper. We are carrying out the work ourselves and David took into account our abilities with regard to hard landscaping. The design is slowly taking shape with a few minor alterations not because the plan was wrong but my energy levels in digging arent what they were! I wouldnt hesitate to recommend David as I am sure he put as much care, thought and enthusiasm into just doing a design rather than the whole package. Thanks also to the very efficient Rachel.

Previously we had two designers look at our very odd shaped plot of land and both came with their own ideas on what they felt was best for the area. I'm so glad we held out until we met David, he listened to what we wanted to use the area for, he observed the finishes and the small attention to detail of areas within our home and asked about our hobbies, then completely turned our initial thoughts upside down by showing us what we could do with the space (this was before we had even agreed to use Up the Garden Path). Such a breath of fresh air to meet someone so passionate and frankly obsessed with design for both functionality and form it was obvious after our first meeting that there was simply no one else for the job but David. He also has a wonderful team who helped re arrange dates for meeting without any pressure and clarified how we could separate the process by separating the designs, scope of works, estimates from landscape companies he has worked with, split the build into stages for budget reasons etc…. In the end we have just had the design, which for 4 visits, a ground site survey and wonderful design was incredibly competitively priced so we will be returning to David for general advice throughout our build some time over the next 12 month. Overall we are incredibly happy with the design and the ideas that David took on board when creating our very personal space. We want to be hands on with some parts of the build so we have split the works into several stages using various specialists for each stage whilst allowing us to add our skills between stages, now we are looking forward to planning how we can achieve it with our budget. The image is still a work in progress as a few bits are still to do.

We met David at the home building show and asked him to design a small cottage garden for our new build property. The site was difficult as the house was down in a dip so beds required retaining walls. David did an initial visit early in the build and spent a morning with us three months later when the scaffolding came down. Although he brought lots of ideas he worked with us and we drew up the plans together during the morning. We are amazed that he managed to incorporate so many different areas, vegetables, herbaceous, paved and gravel with grasses, together with focal points and lighting. Our builders have just completed the hard landscaping and we have done some planting. Although not finished we are delighted with the design and highly recommend Davids work.

David has been very patient in helping my husband and I agree the final design as we have some quite different ideas. He also listened to our concerns re budget and worked hard to work within this whilst still keeping the vision for the Garden. Work starts in February 15 so we will write another review as to how well his recommended contractors implemented the Design.

Up the Garden Path provided a professional and complete service for us from the design stage through to it's completion. Attention to detail and quality of build is exceptional. They have totally transformed our garden, bringing it to life, and we love it. We cannot recommend them highly enough.

David really has vision and had some brilliant ideas to create beautiful areas that are at present totally under used. He understood the way we use our garden and presented us with a range of proposals, short term and long term. He also showed us how to work with what is already in place, and how small adjustments can really make a big difference. Highly recommended!

We requested Up the Garden Path to makeover our rear garden and so contacted them through their website. We were really impressed with David's approach to taking on the entire project. He was incredibly patient in helping us with design ideas for our garden and produced a stunning design that met all of our criteria and exceeded our expectations. I remember the excitement his first rough design created. His attention to detail was really impressive, as was his flexibility to deliver the project within budget. David designed a large patio decking area with shaped lawn and gravel areas. He included trellis screens to create hidden areas of interest. Following on from the design David was available throughout the project. He sorted out the landscaping team to deliver the garden as requested and was available throughout the construction. It was a great reassurance to us to know that David would oversee the whole project to it's conclusion. It was a pleasure working with him and we would recommend David and Up the Garden Path to anyone.Moreexpand_more

Throughout our time with David and Rachel so far we've had a great time. David is very engaged with what he does and his excitement and enthusiasm is very infectious, especially to a non-gardener like myself! He has spent a lot of time making sure we get the right garden for us and has listened very carefully to comments we've made and incorporated them into the design. Thankfully though he has also brought many new ideas to the table and has blown us away with the great design he's come up with - so much better than the thoughts we'd come up with on our own. Rachel has also been very helpful with fast response to emails and help over the phone. A great team :). For us at least, this was a significant amount of money to spend purely on a design but both of us now agree that it was money well spent. We would have no hesitation at all in recommending Up The Garden Path.

We invited David to design our garden after talking to him at the Home Building and Renovation show. We were very impressed with the way that David listened to our ideas and how we wanted the garden to work for us. David came up with some amazing ideas which we think will make our garden look fabulous. The plans were very detailed and we feel that if there is anything that we don't understand David and his team are very approachable and will explain it to us. We have no hesitations in recommending David and his team to anyone wanting the garden of their dreams.

The patio area and surrounding area were looking a bit in need of restoration and having met David gave him the contract of coming up with something fresh and eyecatching. After a visit his visualisation was approved and we went ahead and the results have been very good with a good variety of plants and colour that changed month by month giving us an area that is an integral part of our home and lifestyle. Ken Cooper - Woolpit, Suffolk.

We engaged David over a year ago to overhaul our very tired garden, which we had lost the enthusiasm to maintain. The remit we gave David was to design us a garden that we could make full use use of. The garden was finished in June this year, just in time for the lovely summer weather. We had some teething problems with the local council which required us to submit planning permission, but David was superb; he drafted all of the supporting planning documentation for us and answered all of the questions that the council officers posed. We were kept informed throughout by Rachel, who keeps David very well organised and nothing was too much trouble. Everyone who has visited us since the garden make-over is very complimentary and can't believe the transformation. It's not a cheap decision to trust someone to completely redesign your garden, but David had the vision and was very reassuring that it would turn out wonderful. We very much love our garden and have enjoyed a number of nights out sitting with family and friends and we can honestly say that the garedn lived up to all expectations.

Any size garden can benefit from David's magic! I have just been sitting out in the sunshine enjoying our newly designed garden which is now a haven of tranquility and colour. Ours is a modest garden which now suddenly seems twice the size thanks to some clever design ideas. The garden now feels like a real extension of the house at a fraction of the cost! We cannot fault the service and attention given by David and his whole team. Inevitable problems with such a large project as ours were sorted and did not have to be chased repeatedly. David welcomed our imput and certainly planned a garden to meet all our needs, accomodating a children's play house, a shed, a trampoline, football goals, a dog who needed to be kept off the lawn, a rabbit and the wish for a pond! All in an average garden on a suburban housing estate. Not bad ! Each day the garden is changing as the plants mature and explode with colour a testimony to David's vision when in the wind and the rain ours was sadly lacking!Can't wait now for you to come back and do the front garden ! Thanks so much.Moreexpand_more

Keen plants-people, we have one of the larger gardens on a 1980s' development. Despite years of reshaping and tweaking we had not been able to change the layout of the garden to give emphasis and support to the planting scheme. The plants were wonderful in the summer but in winter the garden lacked shape and character. We met David Robinson at Grand Designs Live in 2011 and after talking to him liked his realistic approach to planning a garden. When he came to see the garden and drew up some ideas we never doubted that this was the answer we had been searching for. David respected our budget and wishes to keep as much as possible already in the garden. David recommended landscapers and we chose one who was a busy man! The rain in 2012 didn't help him get to us quickly either but finally the work began mid-summer and he worked with his team through everything but the hardest downpour. We found them polite, helpful, efficient, and very knowledgeable. Up the Garden Path sent a plant specialist to work with us, and he suggested where our own plants would look their best and additions: trees, bushes, grasses and perennials. We preferred to plant everything ourselves but could have had it done for us if we wished. Visitors are bowled away by the difference and can't get over how much bigger the plot looks now. Throughout the winter we have been so pleased with the planning and work done and it has been a pleasure to look out of the windows and see the shape and structure of the garden.Moreexpand_more