London City Garden Design: some cool city tips
What you did not want was anything that would involve you in actually gardening. The lawn-mowing, the hedge-cutting, the digging in of manure and the digging out of potatoes was, quite simply, not what you meant by having a garden in London.
What you meant was having a place outdoors where you could imagine, on a summer evening, that you were in the Mediterranean. You could sit and relax with a glass of dry white wine and imagine the cicadas. You could invite some friends for dinner, sit under the olive trees with a couple of good bottles, chilled to perfection, and eat trenette al pesto – al fresco. That is what you meant by having a garden – in that rather unpromising area at the back.
It can be done. Hire a garden designer, making sure that their main interest is landscape architecture rather than gardening – OK, your 16 by 14 feet patio is hardly a landscape, but you need a landscape architect, not someone who is going to advise you on how to turn it into an allotment.
Explain that you want a hard surface, not a lawn or a mud-bath. A number of designers have become fixated on the use of Indonesian hardwood and will try to sell you the idea. It’s a lovely material for permanent outdoor benches and tables, but stick to stone or slate as your lawn substitute. Any form of wooden decking etc provides the dream paradise home for London sewer rats – avoid it!
Ask what your designer is doing about drainage – an undrained hard surface could turn into a skating rink with present winter temperatures.
Once you have decided on the surface and the permanent seating – not these awful garden chairs that need to be stored somewhere else (wherever that could possibly be!) in bad weather – you need to think about ….. the “garden” element. There should be something growing.
Tall bamboos in huge pots, olive trees in pots, even banana trees and palm trees are all possibilities. They don’t make mess, they have greenery through the year and they might even make you believe you are in the South of France.
Consider the possibility of hiring a garden. There are companies that specialise in providing the plants, looking after them, changing them when they become tired or bad-tempered, and charging you a great deal for the service! This is, however, the completely trouble-free garden. You can probably even buy a CD to give you that genuine cicada background.
For more exquisite designs and to view the work of one of the UK’s best garden designers click here – Garden Design London
A designer who can transform your garden and outdoor space into something you couldn’t even imagine!
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