Frances’ Glorious Garden – Wide Garden Re-Design

I love getting emails like this…

I cannot believe what I’ve achieved by taking your course it’s amazing.  I have had some truly wonderful feedback from friends, family and contractors who have been working here.  I’m really proud of my garden and would like to thank you for a brilliant course, I learnt so much and enjoyed every minute.

I took on board all your advice with my garden in mind and looked at it from every angle outside with my ideas in mind and thinking about the different styles you showed.  From inside it used to really bother me that the garden felt so short and so I decided to use circles which have refocused my view and nipped it in at the middle forming a deeper border to fill.

I took your advice and went to local garden centres to see what I could find and was so thrilled to find trees and cedars to create an interesting border.  I am happy with the outcome and now I enjoy the view of a Cedrus Atlantica Glauca Pendula I found discarded in a corner of a garden centre, existing silver birch we moved, Tsuga Canadensis and other beauties.  It’s important to plant things you like because it’s so personal.

I thought about measurements of walkways and making sure there was enough space to open a door and arrange furniture successfully.  It really helped to plot the new spaces out with marking out paint and anything else I could think of to mimic the decking which is was raised up to the same height as inside.  Planning from above on the board was so inspiring.

With the circle shapes I used you can see two separate gardens from inside the kitchen and dining room which is nice and calming.   But then when sitting at the end of the garden on the new decking area looking longways you see another complete garden, it really works, I’m delighted.  I also took the final comments in the tutorial not to be afraid to be creative and my moto is “more is more” 🙂

I really wanted to work on the levels of my garden which sloped off into one corner.  It was so boring and I enjoyed that part very much.  At one point we sunk one side of the lawn area with a proposed step down but in the end filled it back up again!  I wanted sunken areas but found the plants shrunk when sunken and so we raised an area up again to my partner’s dismay!

I think I was prepared to experiment in the garden whilst learning all the techniques.  I really wish I had invested in a laser to measure it was a challenge measuring around and through plants which weren’t staying and I nearly fell over many times!  The final levels we landed on work really well and the leveled lawn is very easy to maintain and looks great in its own right.

Materials were a huge part of the process and took months for me to work out.  I spent hours and hours researching online.  My advice is not to stop until you’re absolutely sure the decision is right.  The more time you put in pays off in the end.

You advise no more than 4 materials which I found difficult to achieve due to an existing path but I got there in the end and the finished result is so nice.  I was lucky to find a fantastic landscaper to lay my composite decking after seeing about 6 companies.  Again, I did not commit to one until I was certain they were going to do a good job for me, another learning curve because they all had different ways of doing things.

Finally, I invested in very simple lighting all around the garden and it’s worked out wonderfully.  We can enjoy the garden throughout the day and night.  I incorporated the electrician works from the beginning of the extension project so the wires were laid ready and sockets planned inside which made the final part of adding the lights a doddle.

I could go on but hope what I’ve described is useful for you.  I learned everything online from your course and it’s the best investment ever.  With my partner’s help, we did everything ourselves other than the decking and feel so proud.

Thank you so much

Frances

Click below to do the same course Frances did which is on SALE until 12th October!

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