Design

Career in Garden Design

duncs — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:57:36 GMT

I am interested in setting up a Garden Design Business but before I commit my savings I want to know, on average, what sort of turnover a 'one man band' design and construct business would do in a year and what sort of margin one would expect. Obviously I want to know what the earning potential is as I have commitments like mortgage, young family etc. I have spoken to the Society of Garden Designers and they do not hold any stats like this which is a bit frustrating.

Thanks

Living willow dome?

Lisa MTT — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:39:25 GMT

I'm going to be helping my local primary school to create a dome of living willow which will be used (we hope) as an outdoor classroom. I've got a contact for a local willow supplier, but they are on their hols so, in the meantime ...

What's the largest diameter & height we could expect to build from willow whips?

What material would be best to put on the floor area?

Any particular considerations for where would be a good spot? Light/shade/shelter/moisture/etc

Any other tips for the early planning stages?

All help very much appreciated! Many thanks

Lisa

Bottle wall for PatF

Obelix — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:17:07 GMT

Hello Pat. For some reason the link to reply to your message didn't work so I hope this finds you.The picture you need is in this album:-

http://s211.photobucket.com/albums/bb262/Obelixx_be/05%20Garden/?action=view&current=06-05-2Bottlewallfromterrace.jpg

When we had the terrace laid I asked for the footings to be extended a bit further to allow for the bottle wall. We then put down a layer of dry cement mix into which we pushed the bottom layer of bottles, making sure they were level. Each row of bottles was simply laid on top with no extra cement and just an end wall of cobbles to hold them in place. The final layer - at knee height - was finished with cement onto which I laid old marble slabs for seating.

The wall has stood for 12 years now without moving and in temperatures ranging from -32C to +38C. All I have to do is hose it down occasionally to remove dust and cobwebs. Straight sided bottles with high shoulders work best.

Planting plan for a small Parterre

Hilary — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 15:57:50 GMT

I want to create a small, simple parterre in my front garden (which runs straight onto a country lane no pavement) so the hedge will give me a boundary. I have no clue as to a planting plan, do I go for successional planting as in my 'normal' flower beds, or do I go for structural plants rather than flowers. It will be about 8 metres long and 4 metres wide edged with Japanese Holly to about 20 cms and maybe 2 diagonal lines corner to coner.

Regards

driveway landscaping

gardenklutz — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:45:03 GMT

I have a large house ( W shaped) of which only a very small and scruffy frontage (the point of the W) is visible form the road and which does nothing for the house! There are a few 6 foot high conifers obsuring windows and a couple of run down beds. Does anyone know of any garden/landscape designers who offer a service by post where I can send them a picture of my frontage and they can do a plan fo me to improve the kerb appeal! I was thinking along the lines of slate and small plants or palms?

suggestions for wall-top troughs...

Emily53 — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:07:56 GMT

My neighbour and I have taken down the fencing panels which were fitted on the 4ft wall between our city gardens, and we are planning a row of troughs...

1. It is windy but sunny,

2. about 4 metres long (6 troughs)

3. She likes things neat and I like colour and we both prefer low maintenance. It's a foot wide, so we could easily have different things facing each way...

4. We'd like a year round display - possibly by rotating the troughs?

5. To include some edible plants - herbs , fruit?

Any suggestions & comments? e.g. how to make then light enough to move but heavy enough not to get blown off!

Looking forward to hearing your views,

Emily

Landscape design software

Pete Greenwood — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 23:26:38 GMT

I have been searching for a quality software package to aid my studies in landscape design. Any recommendations would be welcome.

New Fruit and Vegetable Garden

cji — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:37:40 GMT

I would like to turn a grass field into an orchard, vegetable and soft fruit garden. I am starting with a blank canvas so I want to set the garden up to be as maintenance free as possible. I am looking for advice on what materials to use and things I should consider. I don't mind spending some money if it works/will last and means I can manage a larger garden on my own.

I am planning to make raised beds for vegetables and I would like to incorporate a watering system. Any suggestions of companies and products to use. I would like the raised beds to be made of a material that lasts and perhaps has some inbuilt anti slug/snail defence?! Does copper tape work?Any suggestions on design?

Fruit cages any suggestions of products that will last and look good. The field is surrounded by woodland and so I may need some protection for the vegetables as well from pigeons and pheasants. Is there something that could be easily put over raised beds and not be too much of a nuisance when needing access to the beds.

If money was no object I would love to put a wall around the whole garden but I will probably have to settle for rabbit wire. I would have liked to have had a wall on the south facing side to grow fruit trees and one day have a green house. Is there a cheaper solution than a brick wall that would give a similar result.

Many thanks for any suggestions.

concrete problems need more concrete consideration!

patiopal — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:32:58 GMT

I am in social housing with a all concrete patio garden. I was hoping to make a haven and get rid of the concrete. my neighbour tells me the concrete is about six inches thick and then more stuff under that, and then earth not soil. I am now thinking of this: have a PLATFORM area of patio slabs on top of the concrete away from the house so that damp levels will not be a problem and the water course can still allow rain and run off do its job to the drain at the end of the patio to the left. This area would be about a foot away from house and boundry wall and i could put planters to disguise etc. What do people think of this idea. I never was going to do 'heavy duty gardening as i am severely disabled and all i wanted was a quiet sort of zenish type garden with some water features and a planted area to attract the birds and bugs in and to sit quietly in tranquility. some gardening energy i would like to expend but in the main, it will have to be relatively low maintenance and i have to consider too my mobility issues and that of my twin. all contributions here welcome. xpatio pal

Big Trees

Chocosmos — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 14:40:30 GMT

2009 has been the stuff of my worst nightmares.

In March the person who bought the next door bungalow 70 meters away across an open field, cut down the line of cedars which screened the house from ours and proceeded to turn it into a much nicer, but much bigger and more visible 2-storey house.

To add insult to injury, this past week, over 20, 60-year-old poplars have also been cut down by the farmer who owns the land between our properties — they were diseased — and the imminent removal of the last of them will bring the front as well as the side of my neighbour's property into our view. The farmer has said he intends to grow a native mix of oak, ash and maple to replace them which is fine, but won't solve the problem regarding the neighbour's house.

What I want to know is that given the planning stipulation 'to replant in the next planting season' (now) — which deciduous trees would grow fast and go some way to replacing the screen between our houses in a 10-year time frame? (More poplars aren't the flavour of the month around here, and nobody wants Lleylandii — me included). There is ample room for some really big trees, as there's their north-west facing meadow sloping down to a farm track between our properties and no loss of light or of lack of space issues need to be taken into account from the neighbour's point of view.

After my initial rage at their actions, we've kind of made peace and they've offered to 'soften' the view — I'll be an old lady by the time the house is completely hidden again, but some blurring in the meantime would be nice.

What trees could I plant in my garden? I'm clueless!

Jo — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 19:54:42 GMT

Hello - I'm hoping someone can help as I'm going round in circles on this one. We've got a blank canvas to play with, and I'd like to plant a couple of trees to obscure the view of some of the neighbours windows.

One tree would get a reasonable amount of sun (along a west-facing fence) and the other not as much (along a north facing fence). The soil is fairly heavy clay and will hopefully drain better now we've had the drainage put in. We'd like trees that don't cast too much shadow - particularly the one along the north-facing fence as it would shade out the garden and don't want anything that is going to grow too big or has roots that are too shallow as I'd like to plant at the base. How far out from the fence should we plant - our garden isn't tiny but it isn't huge either.

Any ideas would be much appreciated please as I'm struggling. Would a Whitebeam (sorbus aria?) be ok? Or is there a narrow acer? Are flowering cherry roots too shallow?

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

raised beds - best material to use

ann — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:04:10 GMT

Owing to dogey hips and knees I need to make some raised beds. I guess about two foot high and four foot wide by five foot long would enable me to reach while sitting on a stool. I want them to look attractive & of course to be long lasting. Can anyone advise me about the best wood to use. I had thought about decking.

Garden design software

happygolucky — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:56:41 GMT

Does anybody here know of any good tried and tested reasonably priced software that is suitable for home gardeners?

I have not been gardening for very long and I would like to see what sort of plants will go in different parts of the garden as I have lost so many plants that have been brought on impulse and many plants do not have instructions on where to put them or how to look after them, it could be my fault a bit as I have got most of them from car boot sales and market stalls.

Adding trellison top of concrete fence posts

Kesira — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:50:32 GMT

I hope this is the right forum to be asking for advice about this. I have a fairly plain line of fencing with concrete posts to the top of the fence panels.

I was hoping to add a line of trellis above the fence but as the concrete posts end at fence height, this means that there is not anything to attach them to. I was wondering if anyones knows of a way to accomplish this without the need to remove all of the posts and replace with larger ones, this would be both work intensive, expensive, and will no doubt damage surrounding plants. Is there some sort of post extention for this task? Adding a wooden extention to the concrete posts would not be a problem as I am hoping that with times climbers will be covering a large amount. Also, there are plenty of products on the market that would allow me to paint the posts to blnd in more with eachother. The problem is that as yet I have no been able to locate any kind of solution!

Any suggestions are very welcome, please.

Reclaiming concreted ground for a garden...

Newbee Gardener — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:44:02 GMT

We have broken up all the concrete that paved our entire back yard and we would like to turn this ground into garden - grass and flower/vege beds. What should we do to the ground to make the garden grow? Do we need to replace the soil that is there or can we just use soil improver? Any idea?

Exciting wet project

Alan — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 09:23:16 GMT

Hello everybody, this is my first ever post, please be gentle with me....

Last Summer my wife & were lucky enough to buy a disused watermill on about 5 acres of very wet land in Britanny in France. We are now beginning what will be an exciting project - making the land beautiful. Much of the land is woodland and very much on the back burner. However, there's a field behind the house of approximately an acre. It has a stream on each side of it and is very boggy. There are very large grass clumps of circa 4 ft high growing here and there. I really want to plant but am very unsure of how to go about doing so. I wonder if planting some trees would be a good place to start - to perhaps suck up some of the water thats so prevelant?

The streams are literally surrounded by what should be yellow irises. However, none of them appear to flower?

There's some great Gunnerah growing & I have managed to divide it - could certainly do so again.

There're also some amazing camelias in the garden proper, so my guess is that the soil is acidic.

I would love to know how I could dry out the field a little? It would be fabulous to get some wild flowers growing there?

I have just reread & I am clearly waffling. Any & all thoughts appreciated

Terracing with banks, not walls

Seamonstr — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:05:22 GMT

Hello all. First poster here!

I have a garden that has about a 1:10 slope on it, leading up from the house towards the rear wall. I'd like to create three level areas in the garden, but I want to do it with two planted banks (about 6 foot deep) instead of retaining walls - both for cost and for aesthetics.

Has anybody done this kind of thing before? The garden's biggish (80ft by 35ft), so it's going to involve a lot of earth being moved. My concerns are:

* Water run-off and erosion - at what gradient does this become an issue? Will the banks need reinforcing or stabilising?

* Introduced level differences with neighbours. I might need some 1 - 2 foot high retaining walls in places at the edges. Short concrete posts and concrete gravel boards? Ideas?

* I'd like to keeps some plants whose level would have to change - in particular, a large rose-hip bush. Can I move it? Would it need moving?

* Subsoil vs. topsoil - will I need to strip the topsoil, move the subsoil and then put the topsoil back?

I'd appreciate the benefits of any previous experience!

patio ideas for a disabled person

patiopal — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 05:41:56 GMT

I hope to allocated a patio garden when relocated to a downstairs apartment. I have quite a lot of movement but tire very easily and couldnt do a lot of heavy work. My body tells me that I will get worse, I do use wheelchair when out and ab out. Initially I hope friends will help me get my 'patch' going but I would love some ideas to make a small patch interesting, lively, a bit wacky (as in a past life was an abstract painter), stuff like designing layout and having planters, water, raised beds and most important, to feel it is a garden and I can do gardening no matter how limited i am. I also love nature and want to draw the birds bees and bugs, and have two chihuahuas. Tall order? any advice very welcome.

Where to put a pond?

new gardener — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:21:55 GMT

Hi, this is my first ever post! I am quite a new gardener and have plans to develop a long narrow garden into different circular sections. I really want the section furthest from the house to be a pond because our garden backs onto a small stream and we might be able to encourage some wildlife into the garden. Trouble is that the back is partly shaded in trees and some people have told me it will be a constant problem with falling leaves etc. Does anyone have any advice?

concrete everywhere!?

patiopal — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:19:47 GMT

inheriting a completed concrete bare patch, concrete everywhere. I am being rehoused due to disability. What can i 'face' the raised bed at end of yard. Can I scoop out a section to make a wee 'fire place' for some glowing candles or other such? What would be nice to 'face' this awful concrete raised bed my whole yard is concrete, sorry for repeating, can i get a lump hammer at it (or actually get someone to do this) would i need to remove concrete if puting down paving slabs. dito real turf or other covering eg scented ground cover If i wanted to put in shrubs or even a small part for wildlife how much depth of soil would these take. Preferably i would like to leave the concrete. I also want a pond, even though a tiny pond and a bubbly noisy feature there. There is open trellis on either side of my garden and the neighbours can see through. they are very low trellis, to avoid making enemies are there any climbers that wont go AWOL and overtake the neighbours? I was thinking of climbing geraniums or even honey suckle? would these be unsightly when they die back in winter. sorry lot o questions all at once. patio pal

New Garden and Pond Finishing Touches Help

Bharat avatar — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:28:48 GMT

Fellow Gardeners

I am new to forums, so please bear with me, I am reposting the message below and this time hopefully the pictures will also be attached, I want my Garden project to be a shared one with you all and thus I am seeking your suggestions and views on how best to make changes andshare the developments with you. The bottom line is that I am not keen on sharp lines and pristine borders, wild flowers and many different habitats for wild life is important to me.

The pond is the latest change to the garden and I would appreciate your advice on how best to finish the project.

The pond is "large" about 5 meters long by 4 meters wide and in places it is 1.25 meters deep, the pond has two to three shelves, the first shelf being just 20 cm deep, the second 40cm deep and the third 60 cm deep.

The pond is for wild life only, no fish.

We live in Bath, south side, garden is south facing.

As a priority I have to child proof this pond, any suggestions?

From the apex of the pond to the first meter of the pond is a shallow area and it is about 8cm above the main pond, I wanted to create a little water fall with a beach, perhaps some cobble stones over which the water can flow down to the pond, any suggestions on what to do please?

Any other suggestions for planting within the pond and around it ( at the bottom end of the pond I was considering making a marshy area) will be much appreciated.

Any suggestions on the use of a UV filter, pump, pump size (especially if I want to create a small waterfall, running water over a beach type effect.

Any other advice.

Thanking you all in anticipation.

Bharat Avatar

japanese garden

my garden — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:12:16 GMT

hi all,

i'm a novice gardener and i'm looking to create a japanese style garden but i'm unsure what plants to choose, any ides that you can put my way would be great. thanks

Recycled Rubber Tiles

sierra — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 16:25:06 GMT

Hello everyone, just joined today

I found the site as a result of searching for recycled rubber garden products ~ what we would like to do is pave a small area with a few rubber tiles. I wonder whether anyone can recommend these (or otherwise!) as a viable alternative to concrete? And if so, any further recommendation for a competitively priced supplier?

Thanks for your help.

Sue

gravelling a seating area in a garden

PATRICKB — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:32:43 GMT

I'm pretty new to this and green around the ears(probably fungal,then).I have just dissuaded a lady from putting down decking .instead she is persuaded to do central seating area (ft10x16ft).She adamant she wants vey low maintenance and just wants to sit out i the evening after work.Has anyone ever done such and if so can they advise/tips me of how to!

Wires for a climbing rose; what to attach them to

Aberdeenshire Quine — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:41:11 GMT

Hi, there. I winder if anyone has any ideas that might help. I have an old climbing rose inherited in this garden of mine. It's an old plant and it has not been allowed to climb for some time. I want to support it on wires and let it move up, but the wall against which it has been planted is "harled"- like roughcast- and I have nothing to attach the wires to. I'd rather not use a trellis. I'm trying to work out what to use- wooden poles? Does anyone have any ideas or experience of such a thing?