This week’s Successful Garden Design Students results are a great tribute to upscaling what’s already in the garden.
Angela and Nick are based in Wales and here’s what they inherited from the previous owners…
I will now pass you over to Anglea and Nick to tell you about their garden design and build journey…
Having completed your design course at the end of July 2020, we are now in a position to start actually enjoying our efforts. Apart from a couple of plants, I am still to source, I am happy to say ‘mission is accomplished’!
From the course our takeaway was SHAPE and CONFIDENCE, once we worked on the desired shape everything else seem to follow, we could start our journey.
I have to say I cannot actually remember how we came across your course, but we immediately warmed to you as presenter, and your style of teaching. The course certainly was in our case a good investment, and the knowledge we achieved from it certainly helped us design and build economically.
The course content covered all aspects to enable anyone to tackle any shape, aspect or size of garden, in modules which were of a good length, without overload. Having galleries to see some ideas in place, was certainly inspiring.
We certainly made good use of making a plan/plans with a rubber at hand, until we were eventually happy with the overall look. Which helped us change a nightmare into a dream, admittedly with a lot of effort. We also struggled to find someone in this area to work with us to create our design, which actually in the end saved us a lot of expense. We did it ourselves, with the new found confidence the course enabled us to have.
We had previously concerned ourselves deeply on level changes and the daunting task of removing a large patio, which was all we really had in the garden apart from stones when we purchased the property December 2019. We had even considered having it relaid in its original position, until we identified possibilities. Previously we just kept going round in circles not knowing how to tackle the level changes, apart from anything else.
Work started in August 2020 and main work continued until October, starting again in the early spring 2021 to now have the summer to enjoy our dream complete.
It became our survival project during Covid lockdowns, giving us more time than we probably would have had, and be able to afford to give the project, under normal circumstances. Although we are both retired, we are still tied to family commitments in the south, which normally keep us very occupied and away from the property.
We have enjoyed and are now very proud of what we have achieved, the only assistance we had was to lay the patio, build the pagoda, create the decking, steps and planters and then the rendering. Laying the lawn, paths and all planting we ended up doing ourselves.
We are proud to say we upscaled as much of the existing materials available as possible. The patio we cleaned up the existing slabs and had relaid in the position they are now in. Along with all stones in paths etc.
The colours for wall, and brick outlines (yellow and black)were decided by taking the detail around the actual house, which we felt married the garden to the house forming more of an extension of our home.
May we take this opportunity of thanking you for giving us the confidence after attending your design course, to tackle something we are certainly proud of and are still pinching ourselves in disbelieve that we achieved.
We will certainly be recommending you and the course to anyone who asks, really feel it was money well spent, and in the long run, helped save us considerable amount not employing a garden landscaper to do everything.
Well done Anglela and Nick, what a transformation from where you started. I hope you’ve inspired lots of other people to tackle their garden. Do keep us posted with more photos as the garden matures and thank you for sharing your garden story.
Do the same course as they did…
