No this is not the view of my garden - I wish! It is the view from my cousins back garden in British Columbia, Canada - well at least I can dream and visit now and then............
Background
We have lived in our current house for just over 26 years and in that time we have extended the house twice, the drive once and our 4 children have grown up. Now all in their 20's and more or less self sufficient, my husband and I can spend both time and money on things we want to do! At least that is the plan!
When we first moved in we had a lovely garden, large patio, well kept stream - several large trees, flower beds, plus a number of conifer hedges which gave a great screen from the neighbors and the main road. The first extension took the patio and flower beds around it, the second extension took some of drive and a small part of the garden and when we re laid the drive, we took away the garden directly in front of the house. As you can imagine, with 4 children, two adults (plus one lodger) our drive has been referred to as a car park - so glad we had it enlarged, but it was at the cost of part of the garden and a flower bed!!
Over the years, one of the very large trees died, the conifer hedges began to really encroach on the garden and some of them were dying off, the stream became difficult to maintain as it went wild (well OK - maybe we didn't keep it under control!) and more of the garden got used as an overflow for the stuff you collect when you live somewhere for years!!
With the kids going to private schools, competitive sport and associated costs, and university plus everything else that kids need these days, it is only during the past few years that we have been able to look at spending our money on 'us' and not the kids. One is still doing her Masters but we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel (unless she decides to do her PhD - the uni has asked her to!)..........
So back to the garden -
I have known for years that we would re do the garden one day so I spent a lot of time dreaming of what I wanted to do with the space. Our plot is just ever so slightly less than 1/4 of an acre, if you take away the footprint of the house, it is still a large garden for a 'city lot' in the UK.
While looking for ideas, I found that most articles and books on design did not provide me with enough information as we are somewhat unique. So yes - I know - every space is unique, but ours is something that really does provide a design and build challenge!
Our plot slopes from the front road to the back fence by over a meter (about 4') and if you go to the bed of the stream you need to add another 2 meters (8') to that. The plot then slopes from right to left where our plot is the same level as the neighbour on our right but is over 1 meter (4'6") higher than the neighbour on our left. As measured from the damp course of the house. The garden aspect is:- the front is south facing, north facing in the back garden, east on the left side garden and west on the right.
Since we had built on most of the flat areas, there really wasn't anywhere that was level anymore, no patio for entertaining outside, and becoming very dark as a result of conifer hedges which were too big and could not be cut back into old wood as it was unlikely they would regrow.
So what did we do? Employed a fantastic garden designer - told her our ideas and how we wanted to use the garden and gave the problem to her!!!! Highly recommended 'giving the problem' to someone else and asking Linsey (Linsey Evans Garden Design) to help you!!
During this process I have taken pictures each week to show the progress of the build, kept track of all the various suppliers we used and noted where I found various pieces of information. I thought I would post the benefit of my research may save you some time and if nothing else - might be interesting.
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