Design and construction

Just imagine…

I have a question to ask: Why don’t people use their gardens?

I don’t really understand why some folk have the loveliest houses, and outside is the biggest room in the whole house, but they don’t use it. They don’t sit out there, let alone eat out there. It’s just a huge space that waits to be mown each week.

The bit of our job I love the most is giving people back their gardens. We have finished lots of gardens this year that have done just that. Before they were unloved spaces, either on huge unusable slopes, or just given over to dogs and children for too long. Thank goodness the owners suddenly realised that they could claim their garden back and turn it into something wonderful.

Clearing out the old garden often makes the owners gasp when they see just how big the space really is. An overgrown garden, with trees and shrubs planted 30 years ago, will come as a lovely surprise when cleared. Suddenly, that unmanageable jungle of Victorian evergreens and huge conifers has gone, and in its place is a light airy space – often with the sunshine streaming back into the house again.

Crumbling paths, often lethal in the wet, have disappeared and in their place is the layout of the new design – walls and paths marked out, lawns edged for ease of mowing and beds planned with beautiful plants for all-year colour. Upright structures go in place, with climbers poised to twirl up to the top by the year’s end. Paths are wide enough to walk around together or for the children to whizz around on their bikes. New trees and shrubs are placed for key privacy. Lighting switches on, with a hand-held remote as evening falls and your garden becomes a magical place at night too. The sound of water plays across the garden and there are places to sit that never existed before.

Want to sit at the table and read the papers, have breakfast? Or relax in that lounger over there with your book, or just snooze for a while? You could reach out for your tea, plumping up your special outdoor cushions behind you, as the children play in their new play house, or snuggle up beside you for a story. Teenagers even come outside with their iPods and see daylight! Look around you at your new garden. You didn’t believe all this was possible.

Finished this week, there’s a big 18th birthday party in one of our gardens. In another, a small boy will be playing on his special new see-saw. A roof terrace in Brighton will be hosting a champagne supper and another family be looking forward to us arriving on Monday to start the whole process for them too. If you would like to know more, then do call us.

Plants

Pretty penstemons

These are such pretty plants. They have nice green growth throughout the summer, but they flower now, just when you need them the most. The flowers are in bells all the way up the stems and come in shades of pink, white and pink and purples.

Try and buy them when they’re actually flowering in the nursery because some of the shades don’t work that well. I really love ‘sour grapes’ for the purple is such a great shot in the border, but the pink and whites are lovely too.

They are really easy to look after, and will keep flowering until the first frosts. The stems grow to about 18 inches and then start flowering, but once all the flowers have finished, you can just cut them right down and they’ll do it all over again. Similarly, if you want to delay them a bit and make them flower later, you can cut them back around May or June, when they’re putting on this year’s growth. They don’t spread untidily, like Crocosmia, but just get a bigger clump each year in a rounded fashion. Plant them in good-sized groups to get the most of their late summer flowers.

Things to do

Clear the way! Check your paths

I see so many paths that are dangerous, especially with families that have small children. Spend a bit of time checking the paths in the garden.

Old crazy paving often breaks up in shards as the frost and cold permeates over the years, but new paving can become slippery if it’s in a damp, dark place. Jet washers are great at getting rid of algae and clean up the patio wonderfully, but if the patio is falling apart, or hasn’t been pointed properly, there’s the fear that the jet washer will just dislodge even more of the stones.
I’d say – go for it. Wash the whole thing down, after it’s had a good sweep, and buy yourself a bag of ready-made cement from the local B&Q. After you’ve seen the damage you’ve done, go around and repoint these areas in order to tidy and stabilise the patio again. Of course, I’d much rather you called us to come and lay a new terrace for you, but I’d also rather you did some remedial work to stop people slipping or tripping outside. If there are areas that were never pointed properly, and the jet washer dislodges some of the old pointing, you can fill in with small stones – pea shingle. Add a little soil – John Innes Number Two – and let little plants self-seed in there and produce a cottage garden for you.

Travis Perkins will hire out a jet washer for £65 for the weekend.