Tailored design, timeless enjoyment
Garden Design
We are a Cornwall based Garden Design and Build Company.
Alford Landscapes is a Cornwall-based garden design studio creating contemporary gardens and beautifully planted outdoor spaces across Cornwall and the South West.
Our designs are always client-led: we take inspiration from you — how you live, relax, and entertain — to shape an outdoor space that enhances your wellbeing and brings lasting enjoyment. From sleek garden rooms and tranquil retreats to vibrant entertaining areas, every design is crafted with purpose: to inspire, to restore, and to enrich daily life.
Whether you’re seeking a stylish extension of your home or a complete transformation of your outdoor space, we’re here to help you live your best life, outside.
More About Us
Services
We offer a range of services, from small individual projects to full garden renovation, including garden design, construction and ongoing maintenance.
- A free initial garden consultation
- A range of tailored design packages to suit your budget and space
- Planting design for borders of any size
- Full landscaping and bespoke garden builds, delivered by our skilled team of craftsmen, masons, and carpenters
Portfolio
View some of our completed projects and hear what our customers have to say about us. Visit our Portfolio page to see our full collection.
Japanese Inspired
The garden was completed in December 2025 and we are waiting for spring and summer 2026 to take our final pictures. This garden was once a very simple garden. It had a large perfect lawn that had striped mowed into it. A large white porcelain patio and a far reaching view over rolling hills. This
Contemporary Bungalow Wrap-Around Garden
A terraced multi-functional garden with floating steps, hot-tub and decking. This garden has been designed with the family in mind, as well the client’s wish to entertain. This is an interesting space because the garden is right next door to the pavement so planting that will create privacy without making the garden feel too enclosed
St Ives Retreat
A sophisticated, quiet garden, nestled behind a row of Victorian captain houses, away from the hustle and bustle of St. Ives town.
Alford Landscapes have transformed our garden from one with only lawn and a boring patio to a beautiful, interesting garden which will give us all year round enjoyment. Christine and Scott were a pleasure to get to know; they had great ideas and were always amenable to our ideas or changes. They have an amazing team they can call on, James for the woodwork & Harry for installing the patio. They are all hard working and showed a real desire to give us the garden we wanted.
Christine Alford and the team are professional and fun. They are very talented and gave us a garden to be so proud of. We have sat in it almost every day in the summer months and if the days are dry and the weather not too cold, we sit and have a coffee now (end of October). Christine will listen to your requirements and deliver what you want – highly recommend them and their team.
A small urban garden designed for a couple who wanted a low-maintenance, sociable outdoor space.
‘A place to be’ was a phrase that came up during our early design meetings, and it became an important part of the brief.
The couple both work from home, in an office converted from their garage, so their daily commute takes them through the garden.
I wanted to make that little journey interesting and enjoyable, rather than simply a walk from A to B.
I introduced a raised planting bed with an integrated bench to partially obscure the view of the garden from the living room, creating a sense of discovery as you move through the space.
A diagonal pathway then leads towards the office, passing a small sunken seating area beneath a pergola — a lovely spot to pause for a coffee between work calls.
It’s a relatively small garden, but one designed to offer different experiences throughout the day.
A place to move through, a place to pause, and most importantly, a place to be.
#GardenDesign #SmallGardenDesign #UrbanGarden #ContemporaryGarden #GardenDesigner LandscapeDesign OutdoorLiving CornwallGardenDesigner
Here are a few snaps of a simple front garden
planting scheme that is now just over two years old.
This started life as a pretty typical new-build front garden. I covered the existing lawn with plastic to kill it off and, once removed, added a generous layer of topsoil and compost mix before planting.
The plants were chosen to give interest from spring right through to winter, with a mix of structure, movement, texture and seasonal flower.
It’s an open and windy spot, and there isn’t room for anything that grows too big, so everything needed to be fairly tough, well behaved and earn its place.
We have Phlomis, Lomandra, Calamagrostis, Geranium, Cytisus and Anemone, to name a few.
It’s a really simple scheme, but I love seeing how it has knitted together and softened the front of the house over the last couple of years.
A reminder that even a small front garden can have plenty of character and seasonal interest.
#GardenDesign #PlantingDesign #FrontGarden #NewBuildGarden #CornwallGardens #CornwallGardenDesign #GardenInspiration #ContemporaryGarden #SmallGardenDesign #PerennialPlanting #OrnamentalGrasses #PlantingScheme #LandscapeDesign #GardenDesigner #AlfordLandscapes
New build gardens are fun— and surprisingly challenging — spaces to design.
Within this garden, we’re piecing together a puzzle of level changes, screening without making the space feel enclosed, functionality for how the family want to use the garden, and, of course, atmosphere and style.
These smaller new-build gardens have so much potential and offer plenty of scope for creativity. I love working on them and am really excited about where this one goes.
#GardenDesign #NewBuildGarden #LandscapeDesign #GardenInspiration ContemporaryGarden CornwallGardenDesign
Amongst the concrete and brick of office blocks, pavements and roads, there are still pockets of wildlife, nature and movement.
I wanted this planting scheme to act as an antidote to the more sterile surroundings of the business park — something softer, calmer and more sensory.
A small moment of pause away from phone calls, meetings, emails and the general pressures of working life.
When the grasses are in flower like this, catching the wind and moving through the space, I think they do exactly that.
This is my first public realm-style planting scheme, and with a limited maintenance budget, every plant had to earn its place.
I hope it will be the first of many.
#cornwallgardendesign #septembergarden #wildplanting #wildlife
Here we have a recent design proposal for clients with a large, established country garden, who wanted to bring their love of fitness, wellbeing and socialising into the space.
They are currently having a large kitchen extension built which, as the garden stands, would open directly into a very steep terrace – leaving quite an awkward and largely unusable area immediately outside the new kitchen.
They approached me to find a solution for the transition between the considerable changes in level, while creating generous, useable space around the new kitchen extension and developing the layout for a new pool garden.
The concept brings together a series of terraces, planting, places to relax and entertain, a swimming pool and sauna – creating a garden that feel connected to the house and much more suited to the way they want to live.
Here are some of the drawings from the proposal.
We have finally had some rain – here in the South West at least – and although the height of summer heat has passed I am still out gardening in a t- shirt and shorts.
Autumn is a great time to be planting. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is the best time of year – if the garden is ready to receive it.
The soil is still holding onto summer warmth which means the plans can put down roots. The autumnal rains prevent them from getting stressed while establishing making for stronger 💪, resilient plant.
So, when they wake up out of dormancy next spring, all the hard work has been done already and they can put as much foliage and flower on as their hearts desire – making for a much healthier and fuller looking garden from the get- go 🌿🌸🪷.
I know quite a few of you would agree that there is more to a garden than when it’s in flower.
At this time of year, the flowers move over to seed heads and structural stems.
It becomes a tapestry — not of colour, but of form.
I find there is a different kind of abundance here, and that is what I was looking for in the scheme.
I live in a small terraced cottage on a street where most people have driveways in their front gardens, so I wanted something that felt abundant — something to counter all the tarmac and grey 😂.
Last autumn, when I covered my lawn in 6mm dust aggregate and started choosing the plants, my first criteria was that they needed to enjoy free-draining soil. But I also asked myself another question:
What do they look like after flowering? What is their shape and character?
I learned to think this way by reading and studying Piet Oudolf’s method.
He principally chooses plants for his schemes based on their form after flowering, which he regards as more important because flowering only occurs for such a short space of time during the year.
And now, standing in my small garden I enjoy its seasonality.
I will certainly be getting in there over the next few weeks and will be shifting a few things around – as a gardeners work is never done, but I am pleased how it has shifted nicely from one season to the next. #perennialgardening #autumngardening #cornwallgardendesign #gardenerslife🌱
One of my recent projects has been developing the garden layout for this property, which is soon to have a new kitchen extension.
Like many gardens, it comes with a few quirks — changes in level and an old stone building sitting right in the middle of the space. Rather than seeing these as challenges, they’re opportunities to create a more interesting garden.
The surrounding woodland is already a beautiful feature, so the brief was to design a garden that’s low maintenance, with generous spaces for entertaining and, on the upper terrace, a swimming pool.
The biggest design challenge is the level change. There’s almost a two-metre difference between the house and the future pool, so I’ve introduced a series of terraces linked by feature steps, with gently burbling water on either side as you make your way up.
The steps also needed to connect naturally with both the new kitchen and the existing patio, so their layout has been carefully considered to feel intuitive from either direction.
Once the overall layout is agreed and refined, the next stage is developing the detailed design and construction drawings.
