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Monday 9:30am - 5pm Tuesday 9:30am - 5pm Wednesday 9:30am - 5pm Thursday 9:30am - 5pm Friday 9:30am - 5pm

Martin Coates Garden Studio

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Martin Coates Garden Studio

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Sheffield Garden Designer |
Gardens for health, happiness, and healing |
Designing for private residences, commercial, charity and health sector estate

09/10/2026

I'm delighted to update you on a new sensory and shade garden MCGS have designed for Dobcroft Infant School, with amazing support from Headteacher Zoe Singh and FoDS, and which will be built and planted during Autumn & Winter 2026/7.

Inspired by the shape and movement of a dragonfly and its associations with growth, resilience and transformation, the garden will be a calm, welcoming outdoor space where children can interact with nature, explore their senses, learn through hands-on activities and take time to pause in the dappled shade during the school day. It will be created on sloping scrubland, significantly enhancing its current wildlife value and making the space fully safe and usable.

Centred around a snaking wildflower meadow (‘dragonfly body’) weaving across the hill, the design also has four raised planting beds arranged as wings with planting that corresponds to sight, sound, scent, touch and taste.

It's a pleasure to be working with a range of brilliant collaborators to realise the design:

Creative Building Projects
Gardening Fellows
Riverlution
Kate Lindley Art
and Dr Will Hentley from University of Sheffield who is leading on the meadow planting with the Royal Society.

We will also be joined by lots of (hopefully) willing volunteers so we can be ready for opening up to the children by Spring 2027.

Follow us on Instagram to see regular updates on progress and drop me comments or DMs if you have any thoughts to share.

See more information too on MCGS website:
https://www.martincoatesgardenstudio.co.uk/portfolio

18/09/2026

Wakefield (WF1) garden re-design (2026/27).

Status: out to tender and due for completion by Spring 2027.

I really wanted to share a quick tracing sketch, top view plan and final landscape renders to show a tricky triangular wrap-around garden that I've been working on for a bit.

It goes to show that there's a design for all shapes and sizes!

Having fairly recently moved into the house and with children flying the nest, the clients wanted to re-design the garden to get away from the current dominant lawn and perimeter planting beds. The clients wanted a garden that had more flow, with distinct ‘destinations’ across the garden, and yet feels part of a coherent whole.

The solution was to create different focal points around the garden, including a new pergola with seating at the apex of the lawn. The lawns will be re-shaped to provide softer shapes and flow around the site, with a feature path through the lawn creating a destination. Textures will unite the design across different sides of the wrap-around, including aggregate, stone pavers, and steel planters.

A new planting plan (in progress) will integrate with existing shrubs and trees to provide the clients with garden for relaxation, eating, drinking, having a firepit with friends and family.

See more at:
www.martincoatesgardenstudio.co.uk

Book your consultation today!

14/09/2026

Whilst the allotment is still producing nicely and the night time visitors are ever present, things are slowing down a bit in the garden.

As I was having a nice brew with a client recently I was reminded that a common issue for clients considering garden re-design at this time of year, is thinking they can leave things until spring and summer before pushing ‘go’.

The risk is that you can get pushed down constructor waiting lists, and also make things more expensive. For example autumn and early winter is a great time for planting cheaper bare root hedges and roses and getting your perennials going before the cold snap.

It’s absolutely a time to embrace autumn, the fading cooler light and the slow cooked stews and fruity jams.

But one of many things I learned from a Great Dixter symposium with Fergus Garrett a few years ago was how they see Oct and Nov as the start of their gardening year. Whilst embracing the seasonal changes they are also paddling fast underwater to front load what others may consider jobs for spring.

I’ve found it useful to encourage clients to have this mindset too, to make sure that we keep making smart and thrifty decisions even though the garden may feel more on the back-burner right now.

In which case drop me a line at martincoatesgardenstudio.co.uk to talk through your design project during autumn as there may be advantages to your wallet and stress levels next spring if you get going now.

17/08/2026

Visitors 🌧️🦔🦊

28/07/2026

You are finally jetting away for summer and school hols ✈️ , but meanwhile back at the ranch, how are things shaping up?

Summer hols are a really good test of how your garden gets on without you.

A flourishing outdoor space, designed beautifully and sensibly planted can cope with you being away whatever the weather at home, and that doesn’t mean just paving or concreting over the greenery 🐝 🦋 🌱.

A great garden design can ensure you’ll be coming home to a happy and healthy garden after a fun filled summer 🏄 🚐 , full of fresh flowers, succulent fruit and wholesome veg.

Contact us today to discuss how your garden can be better organised, look great with minimal input, and feed your family with fresh veg, salad and fruit, year round.

14/07/2026

A most welcome visitor… 🦔

We’ve been using a wildlife camera overnight for the past couple of weeks as I’m working on our own garden redesign to make sure our nocturnal guests are also part of the journey. We’ve had a decent run of typical city wildlife but this is our first sighting of a hedgehog in the back lawn. 🙌🏻

07/07/2026

Really grateful to Charlotte Connelly for the opportunity to support her with her planting pocket at the RHS Badminton show over the weekend. It was a great learning curve for me and my first time helping with a show garden.

She’s created a brilliant concept around the importance of gardens for different stages of amphibians’s life cycles- featuring a wildlife pond and extremely detailed and thoughtful plant combinations. It shows how habitat for amphibians can be created in a relatively small (e.g. small garden scale) space, and can also be extremely beautiful.

Hats off and best of luck to Charlotte and all of the designers and volunteers battling on through the baking heat to create something memorable for visitors.

If you’re going to the show this weekend do make a point of visiting Charlotte’s planting pocket 61 by the lake and see the finished garden!

https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/rhs-badminton-flower-show/gardens/2026/urban-planters-a-pocket-for-amphibians

30/06/2026

One of the absolute joys of being a garden designer is learning about clients and their amazing and varied life stories. Even within the same house and garden and family there can be many different and what initially seem to be contradictory demands on the space.

The strength of smart garden design and planting knowledge is to stitch together these different family stories and memories alongside the unique conditions of the site, coherently and conceptually at first, and then into a real living outdoor space that is loved by all who use it, whether it’s growing wholesome fruit and veg, creating nectar rich borders, or little ones who want to carry on Forest School into the warm summer evenings.

In our case, during the the time I was harvesting spinach, beetroot, chard, new potatoes and herbs for Saturday tea, our son had decided to build a stick pile for insects, top up the bird bath, have an argument with some nettles, and create a spider web out of string to trap a dinosaur ‘or something prehistoric’.

Getting outdoors brings us together, even if we’re in the garden for different reasons.

23/06/2026

Today marks the end of the best part of 8 months of house renovation and it’s lovely to get back into the garden and start to think about our own garden redesign. In the almost 10 years since we moved in the garden has evolved rather than been planned due to hectic work, a growing family, and a need to focus on the house refurb. I removed some turf during Covid lockdown(s), added perennial low input beds, and planted jasmines, roses and a fig on the south facing walls. The wildlife areas and child friendly bug features have emerged in the last year or two more by having areas left alone, rather than any purposeful interference. We take care of the fruit and veg growing at our allotment so the pressure is off in terms of growing too much food at home. Now feels the right time to invest in the garden so it meets our needs, whilst removing some of the paving, planning for drought and flood, and increasing biodiversity - in essence embodying the very principles we apply to clients’ gardens. Hopefully seeing our journey will inspire you to get outside more and see the potential in your own garden or back yard.

18/06/2026

We were talking with clients this morning on a site visit about the pros and cons of ornamental planting vs a more naturalistic or wildlife-led approach. I noticed this weedy nook on the path on the way to the car. It was humming with insect life, with loud birdsong in the surrounding trees, despite nearby roads and construction. Even a garden that feels like it has lost its way is likely teeming with life and opportunity if it is correctly reframed by the designer and clients. The wilder ‘roadside’ look might not be everyone’s cup of tea but it can be a useful starting point for your garden design- you might already be sitting on a treasure trove.

Address

Whirlow
Sheffield

Opening Hours

Monday	9:30am - 5pm
Tuesday	9:30am - 5pm
Wednesday	9:30am - 5pm
Thursday	9:30am - 5pm
Friday	9:30am - 5pm

Telephone

+447929710733

Website

http://www.martincoatesgardenstudio.co.uk/

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