What We Do
Julian Tatlock Landscape and Garden Design provide a garden and landscape design service.
Projects range from small courtyard gardens to rural landscapes, from residential developments to public gardens.



Every garden design project – no matter how big or small, complex or simple – always begins the same way.
Whether it’s a town courtyard or a country estate, we spend time discussing your requirements.
We take the time to establish the garden to exactly suit your tastes.
Just as every garden is different, no two clients have the same requirements. Working closely with you from the start, we create designs that reflect your personality, style and budget to create a garden design unique to you and your setting.
Our design team comprise qualified gardens designers and plants people. They work together to create the design for your dream garden. Our in-house landscape team of skilled contracts managers, bricklayers, electricians, carpenters and horticulturists will make your garden design a reality, constructing, planting and maintaining your new garden.
Design Concept
We work with our clients to create stylish and practical outdoor spaces that suit your tastes and requirements. Our decades of experience and technical knowledge allow us to create gardens that are unique, functional, and beautiful all year round.
The initial stage of the garden design process is about creating a design concept that suits your personal style and requirements. Julian Tatlock Landscape Design will work through a Design Brief with you, which will help us to identify what you want and need from your new garden. The Design Brief addresses three key areas: functionality, aesthetics and budget.
Functionality
It’s important for us to know how you want to use your garden. Some people love entertaining guests; a young family may require a safe garden to run around while others may prefer a relaxing, private space.
Your garden’s functionality will decide what features it will include. You might want, for example, an outdoor office, large lawn, water feature or somewhere to house your pots. Whatever your requirements, we will work them into a design concept that suits your style and budget.
Aesthetics
In the Design Brief we will discuss the inspiration for the look and feel of your garden, which comes from a number of different sources:
- The style and architecture of your house
- The interior design of your house
- Your lifestyle and personality
- Your artistic tastes
- Your preferred plants, planting styles and colours
- Your preferred style of garden
No two gardens are the same, of course. By working through your influences we will find your garden’s unique creative direction, and this will guide the rest of the garden design process.
Budget
Every garden we design is carefully fitted to the client’s budget, and we’ll discuss yours in the Design Brief. When the final design is presented to you it will come with a comprehensive schedule of costs, ensuring that there are no unexpected expenses.
Site Survey
Before we begin to draw up designs for your garden, the Julian Tatlock Landscape Design team will carry out a thorough site survey. We’ll measure the precise boundaries of your garden, charting the topography, recording the existing buildings and natural features and assessing any soil, weather or ground conditions that may influence the design.
Design Presentation
Your garden design will evolve over several stages and by encouraging you at each stage to input your thoughts and ideas we aim to articulate your requirements.
As part of this process we will present to you an initital set of scaled drawings, which will outline our design proposals, including details on the proposed planting, materials, finishes and lighting layout. If the design is relatively complex, we’ll also provide a 3D computer-generated visualization of the garden.
We’ll sit down with you and discuss these initial designs, explain our creative rationale and assess your first impressions. During this discussion the design tends to evolve; any revisions are made and finer details agreed upon on.
The Julian Tatlock Landscape Design team and I will then come back to you with a second set of more detailed design drawings, which will incorporate any revisions that have been agreed as well as a specification for the hard and soft landscaping areas and, where necessary, construction drawings and planting plans. At this stage we’ll also provide a comprehensive schedule of costs, which breaks the work down into sections and ensures there are no unexpected expenses.
Construction and Planting
Once your design has been finalized Julian Tatlock Landscape Design’s skilled team of ground workers, bricklayers, electricians, carpenters and qualified horticulturalists will begin the construction and planting of your garden. Your garden’s designer will supervise all the work, and make sure your project stays within budget and on schedule.
Garden Management & Ongoing Garden Advice
It’s important to ensure that your garden establishes well in the months and years after construction. Every garden is different, and we have tailored garden management programmes to meet all kinds of specific requirements. These could range from fortnightly visits during the growing season to twice-yearly visits in spring and autumn, depending on your garden type.
On these visits the Julian Tatlock Landscape Design team will assess the development of your garden and carry out any remedial work that needs to be done, such as pruning shrubs and trees, or supporting climbers as they mature.
For larger projects, we provide a comprehensive range of landscape design and planning services, often working in partnership with architects and individual clients.
We create landscape designs that reflect the uniqueness of your landscapes setting and surroundings.
We work alongside key interests. These include local authorities, to ensure the proposed landscape scheme, for example, satisfies statutory landscape conditions attached to planning approvals.
We have been responsible for the landscape design of a wide range of projects: large private domestic gardens; rural estates and private gardens open to the public.
We specialise in landscape Master Planning for large-scale commercial and public projects, and bespoke landscape design for individual clients.
We are experienced at integrating new developments into sensitive historical and environmental settings. We create imaginative private and public landscapes that support and satisfy the landscape requirements for residential and commercial developments and school learning.
Residential and Commercial Landscapes
Landscape schemes are now a requirement of all new build planning applications and we specialise in the discharge of landscape planning conditions and reserved matters.
We use sympathetic design to create landscape proposals, that are designed to meet the local planning authorities’ planning conditions.
We work collaboratively with architects, building surveyors, developers and individuals that require a well designed landscaping scheme for either residential housing, commercial developments or one-off new builds.
We are successful in gaining planning approval for new developments and diversification schemes, and we combine our expertise in landscape design with arboriculture and ecology.
We design strong, simple, visually attractive landscape schemes that comply with the requirements of the planning authority. A lot of our commissions are to design landscapes that integrate new developments into sensitive areas; these may be historical settings, conservation areas and listed buildings, or environmental habitats, which we take great pleasure in doing – and we are experienced at negotiating with planning authorities on our clients’ behalf.
Public and Private Gardens
We are responsible for the landscape design and master planning of a range of projects, from private domestic gardens through to large rural estates and large public gardens
The landscape design must be sympathetic to the bigger backdrop. We consider the way a garden sits within its landscape, exploring, for example, the opportunities of borrowing the scenery beyond and bringing the views in to the proposed garden so that the new and established elements link together.
We try and discern the garden’s unique sense of place and how it relates to its setting, and identify the best way to harness these elements to create an imaginative and inspiring garden.
Project include the Royal National Rose Society Gardens, St Albans.
Educational and School Gardens
Our philosophy for the design of school gardens focuses on creating landscapes that not only encourage children to learn, but also look at how best and where best the children can learn.
Our school gardens aim to add value to classroom learning, not only in encouraging achievement but also in supporting the development of key life skills such as problem solving, co operation and communication; and offering opportunities for creativity, independence, challenge and adventure.
We collaborate with teachers, pupils and parents to ensure our school garden designs encourage teachers to use the outdoor garden as both a learning resource and a real life experience, and that the finished garden is a place where children can appreciate nature and the environment and develop a responsibility for its nurture and protection.
We provide a range of individual services for clients who don’t require a full landscape or garden design.
We also provide services for those looking for ongoing garden management, following the completion of a project, to ensure your new garden flourishes.
Perhaps you are looking to completely transform your garden or revamp an area in need of an uplift?
Either way, our multi disciplined garden design consultancy offers you a full range of design and implementation services.
This may be either within the remit of a project approach or on an individual consultancy basis.
Garden Consultation
Where you have an established garden with a good design structure we can help to enhance, refurbish and renew elements of your garden.
A garden being an organic thing, it will require additional planting from time to time as well as on-going attention to keep it looking good.
Over time it may require modification as the use of the garden changes. It may be that the children’s play area is no longer required as they are now at university, and instead you would like an attractively designed border to enjoy as a beautiful back drop to your garden.
You might want atmospheric lighting installed, to have the work taken out of watering with an irrigation system, or to have an existing path or terrace extended.
As part of our garden consultation we will assess the general condition of your garden, existing plants and hard surfaces; establish your future requirements and develop design concepts along with landscaping, planting and garden styling proposals for you to consider.
Planting Plans
As part of an overall garden design, or as an individual service for a garden that is already well designed but in which the planting needs help, we can create planting plans to give your garden a new lease of life.
We would provide you with planting plans to illustrate the proposed plant varieties and detail the quantities, as well as helping you with the sourcing, setting out and planting.
Colour, texture, scent and seasonality are key components of our planting, our designs combining plants that reflect the style, mood and aspect of your garden so that your garden looks beautiful in all seasons.
Construction
Our award winning landscape division takes pride in providing an outstanding service to our clients.
They will be responsible for constructing the hard landscaping elements and planting of your the garden.
Our experienced team of landscapers comprises skilled ground workers, bricklayers, carpenters, electricians and qualified horticulturalists.
Garden Management
The Julian Tatlock Landscape Design team will provide you with a schedule for all the new plants we have specified, including information on their characteristics.
For example the flower colour and season of interest list, along with advice on how to care for your new plants.
To keep your garden looking at its best as it grows and evolves it is important to review its development on an annual or twice yearly basis, when plant performance can be assessed and remedial work identified.
From this garden review a garden management programme would be devised and implemented by our experienced horticultural team to provide such services as pruning and tying in shrubs and climbers, staking, lifting and dividing perennials and feeding, scarifying and cutting lawns.