Design Cases

When designing a garden, it is vital to know who and for how long the resulting designed and landscaped garden is going to be maintained by. The book 'The One Hour Garden' describes what maintenance work can be done in the time that you have allotted; and therefore what besides a lawn, you can have in your garden. My redesign and construction work to be done on my 3 gardens - as shown by Case 2 - must be to reduce the maintenance time required to the time I have available. If the gardens are first weeded, pruned, mulched, mown and bare earth converted to lawns using grass seed, then construction can take place in the future - as free time allows during a week or fortnight after the maintenance has been done.

In Case 4, the combination of the Structural and Planting Designs would create a garden that I would be able to maintain in one day a fortnight. I would install a 3" deep mulch in the spring on the beds, so that I can prune the shrubs/trees and hoe the odd weed; whilst the father mows the lawns, the mother tends the vegetable garden and their teenage daughters play football!!

The children in Case 5 loved to look at creepy-crawlies and wildlife, so that together with low-cost the design for different areas in a terrace house garden was created.

Construction Cases

Case 3 is building a drive on clay and it is important to get the part you will not see - the foundations - done correctly.

Case 8 is creating a pond with its pitfalls for foundations.

Maintenance Cases

If you are asking someone to maintain your garden, then do provide the complete picture. If as in Case 1, you intend to sell the property, then look at this - as not a maintenance but as a selling job - and get that job done instead.

Case 6 is creating a vegetable garden in a back garden during the maintenance program of one day a fortnight to maintain it and the remainder of the back and front gardens. This was done over 7 years using a crop rotation system

Concrete ponds are likely to crack open due to movement in the ground levels due to being in clay or vibration caused by road traffic if it is fairly close. Case 7 shows no planting shelves for the pond plants.

Chalk Hill Blue Butterfly