For me the absolute stunner in this space has to be the Fraxinus excelsior better known as the weeping Ash. Brought in with a 30cm girth, those in the know, know, they are far from a tenner down at the local euro saver discount store. But in the sometimes you need to dance in the middle of your local supermarket for no apparent reason department, may I be allowed to refer to the case of the wedding dress versus those who study economics and accounting.
And in your, or at least in my imagination, you and I both know you look so damn good in that white gown and even though you’ll only wear it for just one day and* even though when noted on some type of economists shareholders report type graph it makes nothing but illogic sense to buy it; In short, sometimes, just sometimes, it makes total sense to forget everything that makes sense on some annual report flow chart, in the real world and just go for broke.
It is an absolutely wonderful feeling when, in my head I know I can see what the end result of a garden I haven’t yet created or made will be. And though the budgets here were spent mildly differently, the end result of this space outdoors and the time frame within which it was created puts it right up there with the very best of them.
I say the best of them. But what this garden came with was a massive dose of that that they do on them changing rooms type television programmes. You know the ones were they tell the family to get lost for a few days, flatten their one bedroom apartment, turn it into the Taj Mahal and then bring them back in and tell ’em you can open your eyes, now !
The following are a series of front and side garden beds that were created around the one house to better enhance its feel, look and appearance…. that sounds like something I just copy and pasted out of some legal firms website I’m sure, but for now I can’t think of any other way to write that intro line.
Back to landscaping …And though the front driveway has also to serve a very functional role, [without cars in the images below some may look quite spacious], it is a fine example of what one can do to make your home front so much more inviting and welcoming.
Like that delightful fellow you played football with in school who never got the concept of passing the ball, ever… in gardens, it is sometimes the oversized patio that can claim all the glory and very simply stand out for all of the very wrong reasons. And what that leaves behind, is 10 other guys standing there with their hands on their hips wondering why on Gods earth they even got togged out in the first place.
Garden analagy translated, what you should take from this garden at first glance is that there is no ‘lovely or very large individual big player. It’s more an overall feeling of a great home and or a great garden, and it all just seems to fit.
That and that feeling, behind the scenes in part comes down to proportion; the distances between each sector and within each, that they also sit very happily with each other.
Equally as important is that the calculations should only ever equate [to you] to ‘I love staying longer than I should’ in that [or this] garden. A little like Muddy Waters singing 24 Hours. And though I love listening to that song with my eyes closed, I’ll never type the sheet music into a calculator and press the square root button, if you get me.
Enter the obligatory before Peter got his hands on it picture.
There are days when I can only but wish I had a doppelgänger. Just so he can pat me on the back for another fine job well done. Big headed much, you may say, maybe. But I really, really like this garden.
I will admit I did make more changes in my mind on this one more than any other space I have created over the last 3 years. But creative and good-looking as the end result, the mild edits in my head were proven wise in the end. Far, far more important, the client [I hate that word…] was happy.
To the garden: In the off centre middle of all this outdoors lies a lovely natural matt black natural stone patio of 16 metres squared, wrapped around and entirely softened with of instant height plants. To the harder surface, I like the way this stone goes from matt to almost a gloss black as the rain droplets make it dapple in appearance; something that never ceases to make me smile.
Behind the scenes, the stone runs spirit-level level against the terrain of the garden, yet from the outer it appears level because of how the planting wraps around it. More than that, I like the subtle understatement the stone makes and put simply, it is pretty darned tasty.
If it be the simple things, I love that the bin screen was not shop bought. And silly as it sounds, if there were awards for hand made timber screens, yup you guessed it, I’d get my doppelgänger to present me with one of them too.
In case you might be wondering, the brief also included a note for not all in the main season flowering plants. You may think that not a good thing [?]. Au contraire and far from it says this plants person, in reality, it just makes it different and in a good way. For me, it quite simply makes the choosing of the plants for their new home that little extra interesting.
Below: The obligatory before Peter got his hands on it garden picture
At this point you’re maybe beginning to wonder if Donegan Pants-Gaping believes he has any flaws at all. And though my photography is sometimes rubbish, my including of the image below is more to give you an idea of the journey that one must take to actually get into the garden. Take a scroll back through the images…. because you’ll see that one has to go the full length of the new space outdoors to get into the new room outside, within a new room outside… if you get me. And in the not one acre sized gardens department, that, is one fine trait to behold.
It is only after completing a garden like this, that I wonder why I wondered why. And though the garden will need a little time to come into its own and the plants a little time to find their orientation; one should never forget that gardens without people in them are pretty darned meaningless spaces. That in mind, I’ve got a really nice feeling about one.
Q’s or thoughts [?] leave a comment below or drop me a line.
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