It's been just over 35 years since I started in professional landscaping - being one of the first few at Merrist Wood !- prior to that I sold houses for an upmarket estate agency. Recording In all t - LJN Blog Posts

It's been just over 35 years since I started in professional landscaping - being one of the first few at Merrist Wood !- prior to that I sold houses for an upmarket estate agency.RecordingIn all that time, I have always carried two cameras with me snapping both colour prints and slides in the early years, of the work we were doing.Today a couple of digital camera's works just as well.What I have noticed is that whilst the design of clothes, cars, buildings, etc., changes.Most landscapes up until recently have been fairly consistant, sure we have so called "Contempory gardens" but the various fads come and go , how many survive the passage of time ?Design.Where are all the real design and construction skills lurking? The likes of Mawson and his ground breaking Arts and Crafts...? Very few so called "Modern" designers could be described as classics.. or could they? - I suppose Russell Page is a good exception.PlantsWe do have a much more vibrant and interesting array of plant material - but even this has perhaps been taken too far.Why are there not more bareroot plants available - because they are cheaper perhaps? - just think of the reduced freight costs...have the skills of using bareroot material diminished?MatureWhen is a garden considered mature ? has our insatiable appetite for "I want it now" spoiled what could be, if left for a time to develop? - I'm thinking of the great masters Le Notre, and Capability Brown for instance.ConstructionWhen it comes to construction techniques how long should a patio last for instance? or a drive before it starts to deflect ? or a wooden trellis before it warps or rots?I well remember being called back to a client whose dry lay brick drive we had laid ten years previously.He wanted a new patio and insisted we break out the reinforced concrete base and construct the patio the same way as his drive, because not one brick in the drive had moved in ten years !! - in truth the bricks were Blockley's which are a superb product and the skilled craftsmen that constructed the drive were some of the best. yes ten years on it was virtually how we had left it the day we finished, even the bricks had not faded, being a natural colour,unlike the immitation stuff !!The Passage of timeI often think it would be fun to go back and photogragh yesteryear's award winning projects and see how they have faired over the years? then perhaps the true quality of our work can be measured and enjoyed..."Quality is remembered long after the price has been paid"So what do you all think?

I think that you can definitely date a garden by the plants in it - miniature conifers underplanted with heathers are the gardening equivalent of the Avocado bathroom suite (even now, they can't be done with a sense of irony). I would like to think that people will stick to the timelessly elegant but that can mean many things. As people grow in confidence and knowledge, their plant tastes develop and inevitably change. Gardens have, for centuries, been an outward expression of material culture and as good a cultural barometer as any. In terms of the fashions and fads that we see in gardening, these are naturally slower to emerge than those in clothing as gardens take and awful lot more work to redesign and develop - it's more akin to the changes in interior design and building than it is to the world of fashion. I'm not sure where I'm going with this but it is an interesting question, certainly.

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Andrew Fereday June 17, 2008 at 10:04pm

I think that you can definitely date a garden by the plants in it - miniature conifers underplanted with heathers are the gardening equivalent of the Avocado bathroom suite (even now, they can't be done with a sense of irony). I would like to think that people will stick to the timelessly elegant but that can mean many things. As people grow in confidence and knowledge, their plant tastes develop and inevitably change. Gardens have, for centuries, been an outward expression of material culture and as good a cultural barometer as any. In terms of the fashions and fads that we see in gardening, these are naturally slower to emerge than those in clothing as gardens take and awful lot more work to redesign and develop - it's more akin to the changes in interior design and building than it is to the world of fashion. I'm not sure where I'm going with this but it is an interesting question, certainly.
PRO

Phil Voice June 17, 2008 at 10:10pm

"When is a garden considered mature" - in my experience, an annual garden is mature just one week before it is past it's best.

Seriously, some of the maturest gardens I can remember on my travels will be back at the height of fashion now and priceless in terms of what a new build would cost to achive the same atmosphere.

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It's been just over 35 years since I started in professional landscaping - being one of the first few at Merrist Wood !- prior to that I sold houses for an upmarket estate agency. Recording In all t

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