Finished Garden Design Project Front and Back Garden, Worsley, Lancashire, (2 part post, post (1) Back Garden Update June 16)

Form and Function

A Finished Garden Design Project in Worsley, Lancashire revisited 

2 part post, (Post 1 the Back Garden)

Client testimonial

"When I searched the internet to find a garden designer for my new house, I came across David’s work for the local council and saw the finished end product and I very much liked what I saw. However, it was not just the garden but what the people wrote about the design process and the project from the start to the end that made me contact him and ask if he would be interested to do a project on a smaller scale. I am so glad he was interested.

My new garden is exactly what I needed and this is a result of David’s skills to listen to the client and then transform this into a unique design. He was very clear about the design process, he is an excellent communicator and remained very involved throughout the whole project. David has chosen excellent allied professionals to work with him such as David the designer of my front garden rails and the landscaping team led by Kris, a team that will go the extra mile through storms and snow.

I am amazed every day now how the garden in evolving, it is due to David’s vision and he continues to think about his projects and how he can make them even more perfect and beautiful.

David is an excellent storyteller and continues to be very curious about his clients and transforms all of this into your garden project.

My garden is a story from start to finish that has been beautifully designed, executed and is exactly what I wanted and needed to enrich my daily living"

Ilse

   

As these are my first self designed green walls I have to say they transform and melded a lot quicker than i expected and is definitely a form i will play with again in the future. Its interesting to see a pattern i visualised as numbers on paper turn into a living pattern on on the green walls.

  Mid terrace with seating and coffee table in background perfect place to sit enjoy the garden and unwind.

   The rebate frames on the cedar panels were devised as a means to provide a soft lighting frame to the Acers 

The green walls as seen across the garden.

Green walls are already full of colour, here  Lamium maculatum 'Beacon Silver'

 And the  wonderful  Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost' (PBR) doing far better and bigger than i could have imagined, or hoped for, lending a somewhat exotic tropical feel to the green walls.

The paler silver greens are then contrasted with the darker leaves and flowers of 

Heuchera ‘Plum Pudding’ whilst the sides are softened with the flowing falls of Vinca minor f. alba 'Gertrude Jekyll. In the background the wonderful form of an existing Cherry tree which influenced part of my approach to the project.

The wood store 

Flower panicles Calamagrostis × acutiflora 'Karl Foerster'

    The main cobble beds are planted with a variety of plants, here Eryngium giganteum 'Silver Ghost' contrasts wonderfully with the Scottish river cobble base.

     This was one of the lucky finds as relayed in the Boulder Garden Story with complimentary silver     grey whites and rusty browns adding to the overall balance of the scheme. It also makes a great seat offering a different set of perspectives on the garden.

    Pruned timbers from the Cherry tree have been put to good use and enhance the colours and textures of the garden.

  Sculptural Western Red Cedar screens allowed me to design in hidden planters for growing lettuce and other semi shade loving edibles without impinging on the gardens overall aesthetic when viewed from house and seating terraces.

    These smaller Corten pots to the stepped area add another dimension and connection to the overall harmony and provided the perfect place for Ilse to grow tomatoes. The inclusion of the pots in this area were client Ilse's suggestion and work perfectly in the scheme.

Acer reflected in the warm rusty hues of one of the larger central  Corten pot.

    I chose these bronze grasses,  Carex buchananii 'Red Rooster'to work with and compliment both the Corten pots and the colours in elements of the cobble.

A multitide of bamboo canes in the bug wall will hopefully provide habitat for a host of insects.

    This is a garden of reflection and textures and i love the almost verdigris hue of this particular piece of stone. I visit  an obscure and remote quarry in Wales where i am fortunate enough to be permitted to hand pick my feature stones. 

The second of the smaller Corten pots on the step, this one planted up with strawberries Yum!

 I love the statuesque and architectural upright form of this particular grass, Calamagrostis × acutiflora 'Karl Foerster' This will add another complimentary dimension as it changes to shades of vibrant bright greens to shades of buff.

And last but most certainly not least a tree which is now a firm favorite after i spotted a fine example in Sizergh Castle gardens in the lake district, Sambucus racemosa 'Sutherland Gold' To my mind more Acer like than elder.

Form And Function

A Garden in Worsley, Lancashire.

My initial musings Wedensday May 11th 2016

Question; how do I make a garden relevant? Relevant to what and to whom? The garden owner’s needs, the changing environment, the passing seasons, conservation, conversation? Then there is the question of modernity within the context of the environment and traditionalism. Lawn, do you want a lawn, is a lawn feasible, perhaps not, its high maintenance and rarely ever trouble free. And expected planting beds? And what are the new plants I will think to introduce for? Do you want to grow things just to look at, or do you also grow for the table and the pot? Herbs, maybe some salad leaves? Wood for the burner? Can we have habitat and blur the boundaries into soft edges, a frame within a frame, that captures the trees beyond. How do you then cram all this into a small suburban space and still make it functional. It needs to be a picture, which is a picture whatever the weather and whatever the season, but equally it needs to fill and flow with the seasons as perennials lift their sleepy heads, break the surface of the soil in preparation for spectacle. This week the Cherry tree creates a white umbrella, lending airiness and purity whilst its trunk casts pleasant shadows on the fence behind. The apple bud not far, heavy in white bud on the cusp of open blossom ready to offer a yet to come harvest when the air will fill with the wondrous smell of baking pastry, apple and cinnamon.  The azalea not to be outdone fills and will soon too shine. The fig in the corner not long planted but already fruiting. The point of a garden is surely its connection to all the senses. The answer, this garden which I call the eco contemporary garden. I will not explain more, as there seems little need, it’s there in the pictures, visible, connecting, answering a need by filling the frame of an eye. On a rare day the sun shines and the air fills with birdsong as I wait for the bees and the bugs to make this garden home.

A couple of before pictures

The Dry River Bed Cobble Garden Revisited

Readers of my blog may well recognise this evolving garden design project in Greenfield in the High Peaks. Late last year we extended the dry river cobble bed to incorporate the sloped bed leading down to the driveway. This is all settling in nicely now and fortunately for me on the day of my recent visited the sun was out and the colours vibrant. Below are a few pictures of the garden as it progresses. 

Click this link to view the previous posts on this project.

I sincerely hope you enjoy the pictures and please feel free to comment or ask questions.

All pictures are the copyrighted property of David Keegan © 2016

Do not copy, publish, or use in any way, without the prior consent of the owner, David Keegan.

Picture size and quality is reduced for these postings in order to protect the integrity of the expressed and legal copyright © 2016

The Boulders. “The Story of a Gardens Lost History”

 The Story of a Gardens Story.

One of the most exciting, and sometimes daunting, aspects of my job is the anticipation of what I will see when I make that first visit to meet a new client. I say sometime daunting, as over the years I have come across some very challenging and unanticipated difficult conditions, from severe slopes, one of my most often presented challenges, to very badly neglected and unloved spaces. Let’s face it you are not going to call a garden designer if you have a beautiful garden to begin. This story though, of the story of a garden, must surely stand as one of the most intriguing I have yet come across.

I got an email inquiry from a lady, let’s say her name is Angela, as she wishes to remain anonymous, and attached to the email a couple of pictures of a garden space with a large quantity of boulders and the remains of what looked like quite a bit of tree surgery. Angela’s inquiry, did I know of anyone who might like to have the stone, or indeed, could I possibly use the stone on one of my projects and could I potentially help with the redesign of the space. On reading the email further it transpired that both Angela and her husband had recently purchased a property, the garden to which they assumed was just badly overgrown. When they said overgrown it turned out they meant overgrown in the sense of a number of very large and dense conifers virtually filling the entire rear garden area. No problem they thought, just get the trees cut down clear the space and return a normal and usable garden. However, nothing quite prepared them for the discovery that lay hidden amongst the dense undergrowth. On clearing the space they revealed the remains of an authentic Japanese garden complete with a mini version of Mount Fuji to one corner. Given there had been no mention of this, either by the estate agent, or in the property particulars, they were somewhat confounded, confused, panicked and not particularly happy, as they did not want a Japanese garden.

On making further inquiry from the vendor, daughter of the deceased, the story of the gardens creation was even more intriguing. The 1980s detached house built in a pretty normal, if somewhat leafy, suburban area of Cheshire had somehow inspired the owner to commission a designer based in California to design and install an authentic Japanese garden, replete with mount Fuji replica, Buddha stone, a very large Koi pond, subsequently filled in, ornate bridge over the pond, a water fall, along with various paths through the space.  Unfortunately the instigator and owner of the garden had died at the very young age of 61 and his wife, having no interest in the garden, donated the fish to another Japanese garden, had the pond filled in,  and promptly forgot about the garden as she sadly descended into a deep mourning loss of her husband. Having passed away quite recently the house was put on the market by their only surviving daughter.

I duly made an initial appointment for a consultation visit with Angela and her husband to discuss possibilities, with an initial view to suggesting they sell the stone to a salvage reclamation yard. The day of my visit was alas another of the all too frequent wet, damp, miserable ones. Even on a wet day though I was intrigued by what I saw, as looking out the window my eyes drawn to the wonderful form colour and texture of the stone, it dawned on me that I just might have a place for some of the larger pieces in one of my other projects that had just completed in Worsley, in Salford, Greater Manchester. Not wanting to pre-empt, I said nothing during that first meeting about possibly using some of the stone, but instead set about discussing and enthusing the possibility of retaining some elements of the Japanese garden in a re imagined configuration, and in particular mount Fuji, which I felt could once again gain significance within this new space.

Meeting with the client in Worsley during the week that followed I shared the story of the Japanese garden, along with my thoughts on 3 of the feature stone, with the proviso I was not at all sure, given the very restricted access, that it would be feasible to get the stone into position, but that I would ask our ever enduring landscaper Kris what his thoughts were. Kris as usual was full of enthusiasm and had replied, as he usually does when confronted with challenge, we will find a way. I joked they would have to do an Egyptian with poles and sacking to carry the boulders, prescient as it turned out.

True to form he did find a way, and the bodies, and the poles, and the sacking, and a brief dry spell, and yesterday, Saturday 21^st May 2016 we spent the day both collecting, and then positioning, the boulders in their new home. The uncanny, they look like they have always been there.

Below are a few pictures to visually carry the story of the boulders.

 The boulder that first caught my eye and gave me an idea.

 Mount Fuji laid bare

 The narrowest door presents the trickiest task, how to get over half ton of boulder through it.

 The rain poured down shortly after the job of moving and installing the boulders was completed, good and lucky timing. The lads are still smiling, but probably because they have earned a cold beer!

 The garden with new boulders insitu. The wonderful Orange Azeala mentioned in previous post now in full and glorious flower to the foreground. On first sight it quite literally takes your breath away.