EXOTIC GARDEN

HERTFORDSHIRE

Behind this garden lays a tale of caution. I first came into contact with it whilst landscaping a garden across the road. At that time this garden was being landscaped by a company that had that year won a medal at Chelsea, you'd expect them to know what they were doing wouldn't you?

I went over out of professional curiosity to see what they were doing and was quite horrified. Workers were wading through calf deep mud and planting expensive tropical plants directly into this unprepared mire. On returning back to my own clients I commented to my client that those plants would not last through the next winter.

I was wrong. I received a call from the owners later that same year, asking for help. Many of the plants were already dead and the lawn was a shambles. The owner was seriously ill and did not want the problem of trying to deal with the original landscapers, preferring instead to engage me to sort out the problems. You can see in the first photograph just how bad it was.

The whole site needed to be landscaped again from scratch.

I put drainage under the whole garden and raised the lawn 150mm. Most of the plants needed a free draining soil if they were to survive so I created raised beds for them with used railway sleepers. After a conversation with the client it was agreed to add a pond so that he could sit and watch the fish.

The patio was also a shambles as it had no proper base but it was decide that it would have to do due to the cost of lifting it and starting again.

The client was very pleased with the result, but sadly passed away quite soon after.

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