Back Garden Landscaping: Balydoyle, Dublin

I first met and landscaped this garden way back in January 2009. It was at that time, fair to say a very blank space pre my getting there. Fast track almost 7 years forward to present day and you might be surprised to hear that another garden makeover has just been given. Again. By yours truly. Or, you might not.

What had happened in the meantime was that life itself had changed. Things change. Like Love Me Do to I Am The Walrus. It happens. Something also I referenced re my own gardens metamorphosis when I spoke at Christ Church Cathedral and Dublin Garden Festival last year.

The before and after video below explains things a little better.

And whilst some see garden spaces very logically as an overhead; others in life, in their homes and also in their gardens sometimes move on and, bring their gardens with them. Here, the catalyst was that the builders came in and put a much better homely extension onto the back of the home. A fine extension I should add. But the resulting effect was that the now mildly amputated garden looked very much out of situ.

It felt to me, the garden that is, a lot like when you arrive to that soiree at 1.15am; you straight from work not even a cup of tea have you drank and as you open the door the entire house is standing on the kitchen table, suit ties around their heads – sideways; as half emptied bottles of Bollinger bellow out streams of bubbles before turning into microphones for the finale chorus of Livin’ On A Prayer. Bon Jovi, in case you might be wondering. In a nutshell. Nothing made sense. Even though it did at one point.

To the garden now. It’s new. It is a little smaller. But it’s better. Of the plants some, are a little younger than I had hoped. But that’s alright and I know I, can’t have show garden planting [no soil visible] every day of the week. That said, it is planted extremely tastefully and for that alone I will sleep a lot brighter knowing that its new journey was one where I hand selected every plant personally. Including, I should add one show stopper of a white flowering Lilac the scent of which is worth more than another 50 weeks waiting for it to return to flower.

Lovely people. Loveliest gardens. Always.

Happy. Very. X
Peter