Tropical Hideout at RBD Stillwaters (Backyard)

Prashant and Shalini’s Backyard Garden.

The idea of this modern tropical garden weaved itself after we received a call on a December morning in 2017.

As we set out to meet with the client, we were excited about designing a garden space that’d be cherished for a long time.

After the initial discussion with Mrs Shalini, a pathologist and her husband Mr. Prashant, an Engineer by profession,  we figured that there were different areas around the home dedicated for garden. A rough hand sketched layout was planned and presented to start with.

We later tweaked the design slightly to suit the garden space available, considering various constraints of the space during our next meeting and the design was finally concluded.

The materials were arranged, transported and jobs were assigned to the limited set of laborers available.
(Side note – In India, 70% are in unorganized sector of employment, the labour system is almost a chaos)

As part of the layout were elements such as stepping stones. Mr Singh had specifically requested against hardscaping i.e., usage of concrete or hard tiling etc in the garden areas except already existing concrete areas.

Hence the stepping stones used in the backyard was part of the soft scape work and lawn was to be added in between to compose the layout, creating a modern appearance. This lawn would later help holding the stones in place as well.

The other aspect of the garden plan was the Lawn. As it is true with other clients too, Mr & Mrs Singh were skeptical about using Shade Grass.

We reasoned against the usage of Mexican/Bermuda Lawn because of the poor light conditions due to a high raised building casting shadow on all areas of the garden.

Finally, they agreed trying Shade Grass and are in love with it now.

Also in the end, as the clients enjoy the garden mostly in the evening, we added few lighting to enjoy the garden post sunset as well:).

From Our Instagram Profile –
Convincing clients for shade grass had been one of the most difficult aspects for us so far. 
This one client Mr. Prashant reluctantly agreed to try it out almost promising himself to replace it with Mexican lawn later…
Read the full story on our Instagram here –
 we revisited his Garden almost 7 months later and his reaction to the shade grass in his Garden was priceless.