As our garden design and build project in Liphook comes near to completion I thought I would write a quick bit about the brief and what we've done to meet it.
I was called in about 5 and a half weeks ago to quote for a lovely couple in the Liphook area who had acquired some land from the next door neighbour and wanted to extend the garden, add new fencing to the border, build a new pergola, create a whole new planting scheme and mostly design a space that would compliment the size and style of the property.
After getting the quote back within five or so days it was approved and we were very excited about getting started!
The reason for the quick turn around is to get the whole build done in time for spring before a new road is laid leading to the house.
The worry was that if it wasn't done before, skip lorries and heavy loads could effect the newly laid surface and we wanted to honour our promise, weather permitting, that we could be done before that.
As it happened, we have found a great alternative to skips for this particular job in Liphook in a new, local business named Kleerup. This is a small, reliable business run by Patrick who comes armed with a caged tipper truck. He will load the rubbish and remove it in a safe and responsible way eliminating the need for skip lorries and lost space on your driveway while you wait for it to be taken away again.
Once we had cleared the rubbish including old fencing, removed shrubs, foundations from the existing old pergola amongst other things it was time to start marking out the new design and getting to work on transforming the space.
Because of the positioning of the large bed on the left I've looked mainly at shade loving plants like liriope muscari , astrantia major and an acer palmatum in the middle. The beds with more sunshine are being planted with perovskia (russian sage) Dahlias and evergreen structure like Photinia and Viburnum tinus. The fence panels with trellis lent themselves to climbers too so jasmine will grace much of the length with trachelospermum and grapevines (vitis coignetae) growing over the pergola (pergola pictured at the bottom of the page).
These weren't the only hard structures we put up in this design. We also built a low retaining brick wall, tied in an old wall and paved an area for the water butt and possible compost bin. We plan to go back once we can find the perfect plants like the acer palmatum and see them in leaf before we buy them. This way we'll know we've finished the project as we had promised!
More to come on the planting!
You can check out some of my plant ID videos here if you're looking for planting inspiration. Remember, I'm not a presenter by trade, but hopefully they'll help! I'll be posting again with pictures of the plants in place.
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