Planning garden design in Radlett or Shenley? London Clay and wet winters, TPOs on Loom Lane and Porters Park, Hertsmere and Green Belt rules for garden rooms, and real build costs.
Read article: Garden Design In Radlett And Shenley: London Clay, Protected Trees, Green Belt Rules And Costs
Designing a small or courtyard garden behind a St Albans terrace - shade from walls and extensions, access through the house, levels, materials, pots, storage and real costs.
Read article: Small And Courtyard Garden Design In St Albans: Walls, Shade And Everything Through The Hall
How to design a St Albans front garden that parks a car, hides the bins and still has planting - dropped kerbs through Herts County Council, the 5m² rule, Article 4 areas and real costs.
Read article: Front Garden Design In St Albans: Parking, Bins, Bikes And Still Some Green
Planning a family garden in St Albans? Zoning for play, lawn or bark under the climbing frame, safe planting, bike storage and rough 2026 budgets for local plots.
Read article: Family Garden Design In St Albans: Play Space Now, Grown-Up Garden Later
Real lawn, artificial grass or a wildflower meadow in St Albans: how each copes with clay, chalk, hosepipe bans, shade, dogs and children, and what each costs.
Read article: Lawn, Artificial Grass Or Meadow? Choosing For A St Albans Garden
How to check whether a tree in your St Albans garden is protected, what root protection areas mean for paths and patios, and how to plan planting and light around a big tree.
Read article: Trees In St Albans Gardens: TPOs, Conservation Areas And Designing Around Them
Why St Albans lawns and patios waterlog, and how a garden designer builds drainage into the layout - falls, French drains, soakaways that pass, rain gardens and wet-ground planting.
Read article: Garden Drainage In St Albans: Designing For Clay-With-Flints And Chalk
Planning a garden room or studio in St Albans? Where to place it in the design, the permitted development limits, clay-with-flints vs chalk foundations, power and real costs.
Read article: Garden Rooms In St Albans: Siting, Rules, Foundations And Cost
Garden lighting design in St Albans, planned before the paving goes down - cable routes, layering, 12V vs mains, Part P, light spill near the green belt, bats on the Ver and real 2026 costs.
Read article: Garden Lighting Design In St Albans: What To Plan Before The Build
How a garden designer chooses paving in St Albans - York stone, sandstone, limestone, porcelain, clay pavers and gravel, matched to the house, the clay or chalk underneath, the front-garden drainage rule and a realistic cost per m².
Read article: Choosing Paving For A St Albans Garden: Stone, Porcelain, Brick Or Gravel?
What a garden designer actually does with a Harpenden plot - mature trees and TPOs, the chalk and clay-with-flints split, conservation area rules, and realistic fee and build figures for larger gardens.
Read article: Garden Designers In Harpenden: Big Plots, Chalk, The Commons And What A Designed Garden Costs
How to design a sloping garden in St Albans - terracing or a gentle grade, retaining walls and when an engineer is needed, steps, clay and chalk drainage, planted banks and what a slope adds to cost.
Read article: Designing A Sloping Garden In St Albans: Terraces, Walls And Where The Water Goes
Design fee, build budget and where the money actually goes in a St Albans garden build - realistic 2026 bands by plot size, rates per square metre, and what access and levels do to the total.
Read article: What A Garden Redesign And Build Costs In St Albans In 2026
Cannot build the whole garden at once? The order St Albans garden phases have to follow, what stopping and restarting costs, and two worked examples with cost bands.
Read article: Phasing A Garden Build In St Albans: What To Do First
Every stage of a garden design in St Albans - consultation, survey, concept, masterplan, construction drawings and planting plan - and what you get at each.
Read article: What Happens In A Garden Design In St Albans, Stage By Stage
How to design a garden that belongs to an old St Albans house - reading the architecture, materials against brick and flint, conservation rules at the back, and what to do with bulging garden walls.
Read article: Designing A Garden For A Period Home In St Albans
Garden design fees in St Albans explained - the four ways designers charge, what each drawing stage produces, typical Hertfordshire fee bands, and what you can safely skip.
Read article: What Does A Garden Design Cost In St Albans?
Thousands of St Albans terraces sit on long, thin plots. A section-by-section guide to designing one, from the sunless side return to the shed at the bottom.
Read article: Long Narrow Garden Design In St Albans: A Walk From The Back Door To The Far Fence
Most St Albans households want a garden that looks after itself. Here is what low maintenance genuinely means in hours, and the design decisions that deliver it.
Read article: Low-Maintenance Garden Design In St Albans: What It Really Takes
One firm for the whole garden, or a designer and a contractor hired separately? How the two routes differ in St Albans on cost, control and who carries the risk.
Read article: Design And Build Or A Separate Landscaper In St Albans?
St Albans sits in one of the driest, most water-stressed parts of England. How to design a Hertfordshire garden that still looks good in a rainless August.
Read article: Designing A St Albans Garden For Dry Summers
Overgrown but sound, or broken underneath? How to work out whether your St Albans garden needs a renovation or a full redesign - and what each route costs.
Read article: Garden Renovation Or Full Redesign In St Albans?
St Albans gardens sit on two very different soils - heavy clay-with-flints or thin valley chalk. Which one is yours, and what actually thrives in each.
Read article: What To Plant In St Albans Soil: Clay Or Chalk?
What a designed garden really does to the value of a St Albans house - where the gains genuinely come from, which projects pay back, and which never do.
Read article: Does A Designed Garden Add Value To A St Albans Home?
Which garden projects need planning permission in Hertfordshire and which do not - decking, pergolas, walls, front gardens, protected trees and the Green Belt, explained plainly.
Read article: Planning Permission For Garden Landscaping In Hertfordshire
What separates a garden designer worth £40,000 of your money from a confident one - the questions to ask, the drawings to insist on, and the local knowledge test.
Read article: How To Choose A Garden Designer In St AlbansThe Business Behind It
Treats every project the same way.
Superior Garden Design is Mark's business. He is a meticulous planner who writes everything down and treats every garden with the same care, because a design project runs for months and has to be managed properly from start to finish.
Albert works alongside him in the office, answering the phone and handling the admin and the online side. If something in these articles raises a question about your own garden, he is the person to call first.
Coverage
We design and build gardens across St Albans and the towns west and north of it, from Radlett up to Welwyn and out through the Chilterns edge to Berkhamsted. Not listed? Ask anyway - we take on projects a little further out where the garden is interesting.
The first visit costs nothing and commits you to nothing. We look at the space, ask what is not working, and tell you plainly what it could become and roughly what that costs - before any design fee enters the conversation.
