Shaping Dreams

I just want a beautiful garden, nothing more and nothing less.

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When someone hires a garden consultant like myself, it’s very rare that in the first meeting with the client to discuss garden changes we’re met with the simple statement, “I just want a beautiful garden, nothing more and nothing less”. Needless to say, my team and I were left a little lost.

This first meeting with a client is the most important. It’s where we establish what dreams, likes and dislikes the client has, their favourite colours, shapes and styles. It’s a lot to take in. Through carefully worded questions, we establish the boundaries and slowly begin to create a picture of their lifestyle, taking into account the family needs (and the needs of their pets!).

Once we have met with the client, the creativity starts and the once-fuzzy clouds of ideas become images in your mind. These images are then transferred onto paper to form the plan – the ultimate working document for any garden. I understand that for some gardeners a plan is flexible and this I really don’t mind. We must remember that one’s garden has to reflect who and how we engage with the world. My only word of advice is that you need to take the entire space into consideration and work on bite sized chunks one at a time.

Painting the picture for this garden

This medium-sized townhouse garden space has some established garden beds, a narrow section off the patio, and a mostly sloping garden. A deck had been installed leading off new double doors that were added to allow the flow from the lounge and dining room to the outside. This was one of the main ‘fixes’ that needed to be done before my team could get stuck in and start the garden. The reason for this is simple: the main garden space was actually in the shape of an ‘L’, a dogleg-shaped space that had no access from the home. So with this new access point the flow was improved.