Peter Donegan Garden Design & LandscapingIn 2001, aged just 24 (about to be 25) I started Donegan Landscaping.
My good friend Eoin of Directing Media has wanted to interview me for sometime. The publishing of this short interview video coincidentally coincides with my 15th Birthday in business. There is a longer version. But I’ll leave that for another day, for now.
Thank you all. For everything.
X Peter
Sedum – Crassulaceae
More commonly known as stonecrops, Sedum are a genus of around 400 species of mainly succulent annuals and evergreen, semi-evergreen biennials, perennials, sub shrubs and shrubs a few of which maybe found in the genus Hylotelephium. Mainly found in the Northern Hemisphere some are from the arid areas of South America. Sedum are very variable, with alternate, opposite or whorled, fleshy, cylindrical or flattened leaves and usually terminal, often compound, cymes, panicles or corymbs of generally star shaped and 5 petalled flowers, borne mostly in summer and autumn. Grow hardy species in a rock garden or at the front of a herbaceous or mixed border.
This raised green roof garden was built as part of an overall landscaping project and is quite simply just one part of that.
It’s a funny one with landscaping small-er spaces. Because I guess, from a personal perspective; and I know, that it may sound a little selfish, but you essentially end up with one visual of an end result.
In this case, on the one part that comes partly down to client brief. The other reason is that it is down to not so much size, but more the dimensions of the new to be garden and that is something I cannot change. Here however there was an added whammy or a deduction to be taken from the budget.
Because prior to my getting there the space inherited was a grey, gley, bland wilderness of a deforestation programme that had then evolved in to something really terribly horrible, horticulturally. Is that even even correct english ? I wanted to scream very, very quietly at the ‘soil’. Or use a kango hammer on it. Riddled with Ash tree stumplings; all covered over with a sprinkling of grey slate shale, just in case you needed a little more inspiration in life. It was a garden according to the client in which they [quote] had never sat at their own patio table and chairs.
The story does get better….
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.
In 2007, the 27 acre estate gardens of Brackenstown House won 2 awards at National competition. The gardens designs, though they were intended to start some 300 years ago had, history states and shows, never been completed, until that is 2007.
The two awards, an Award of Merit for Best Private Garden Landscaping and also for Best Overall Maintenance were awarded to Peter Donegan Landscaping Ltd for works completed and to Peter Donegan as the gardens Designer.
In submitting the garden for award an A3 size bound presentation was submitted showing a history to the landscaping that took place to get the grounds to where and what the judging panel were now looking at and judging. Of note, the grounds had matured by the time judging took place. The photographs shown are all of works nearly (intentionally so) complete.
At the time, technology was not what it is now and I guess the alternate is to leave the ‘gardens’ history sitting in a filing cabinet. It may more importantly prove of benefit to someone else in researching gardens of the 17th and 18th century. Something that I and others only know too well is very difficult to find indepth readings of.
I have tried to keep the presentations layout as best as possible online, similar to that that I submitted at the time. What is not included here are and hundreds upon hundreds of photographs; and my drawings and plant legends. The latter for no apparent reason apart from they are very, very large and I don’t own a scanner of that size. This is but, the presentation.
At the time of designing, [again] the internet was not what it is now. And as the gardens designs were never completed, there logically is very little of note on them. That said to the history of the house I owe much thanks to Finola and Turtle.
You can view more information and phtographs of Brackenstown Gardens taken after the awards. I have also added some images in at the very bottom below, including the kitchen gardens handmade central pavilion (sometimes known as a gazebo), the final piece in the jigsaw outside of the planting and the changing of the sunken gardens pond sculpt, I felt.
Of Brackenstown, the awarding judges noted that:
the work illustrates a consisted commitment to horticultural excellence in a restoration project that requires a keen understanding of the client’s requirements. The herbaceous beds in particular deserve special acclamation for their restrained but inventive interplay between colour and foliage texture.
And of the second award, that the award goes to this project because the judges believe it:
demonstrates a discernible excellence in maintenance.
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