Summary
We got a call from our clients in the January. They had installed a shed/man cave and had some planters that were collapsing, they wanted to be able to access and use these all year. And the borders of the garden had some fairly steep slopes and was difficult to access, but needed some maintenance. There was also a summer house that had an unsightly supporting structure and some strangely located flower beds.
A plan was needed to connect all these garden components together and make the ideas our clients had actually work. As is often the case one component has to be got right and then everything else falls into place. Our clients wanted a windy path to the man cave and what became the allotment beds. People walk in straight lines, wanting to get from a to b as quickly as possible, and will only follow a windy path if they must, so the key to this design was to get the curve the path would follow ‘right’ and everything else would the fall into place. The curve had to be a curve, but feel like a straight line when you walked it so that you stayed on it when traversing the garden. It also had to allow access to the Summer House. So, whilst sorting out the design I extended the steps to allow me to get an angle for the path and allow for the slope in the garden. I then pushed and pulled the curve to connect all the steps with the man cave and the summerhouse. It was a bit like an upside-down question mark. The area surrounding the allotment beds had a similar shape and the other beds all reflected the dominant curve of the path.
The sloping edges to the garden were planted with meadow turf which is colourful, and only needs strimming once a year. The area to the side of the house had a path cut into the bank allowing the meadow here to be turfed as well and accessed for strimming too.
It was just reward that the design got commissioned.
And also worthy of note that this was the first design completed using AutoCAD. Whilst the programme is unique in character it was invaluable in getting the curve spot on…
Sue, ‘it took along time to convince my husband to design our garden, but i’m so glad I did.’
