Are You An Environmentally Responsible Designer?

I was recently involved in a discussion on LinkedIn regarding the specification of non locally sourced materials.

Is it just me? or does it strikes you as odd,  that some of us are specifying materials which have to be transported 1000’s miles across the globe,  just to satisfy a whim!

Ignoring the aesthetic argument of genius loci (spirit of place) for a moment, aren’t we as landscape architects, supposed to care about our environment and make responsible choices?

With oil prices again, heading towards the $100 a barrel and the kick starting of the global economy likely to drive prices to $200 within a few years, shouldn’t we setting an example?


I appreciate that container shipping is the most cost effective and environmentally friendly way of transporting any material. The problem  is, that despite this, many of us are beginning to see this transportation as unnecessary and morally wrong.

Should we use hardwoods which take 100’s of years to grow when a softwood would do the same job and be replaced in half the time. Should we be using stone brought from India just because it’s cheep and we like the colour?

There are also other hidden political, social and environment implications of imported products.
For example the child labour issues with Indian stone or the rape of environmentally sensitive landscape from non sustainable sources. The destruction of unique and valuable ecosystems in third world countries, and the pollution caused by unregulated quarrying and logging. 

More specifyers are making environmentally conscious decisions when choosing materials and this trend is only set to increase.  Leaving aside global warming, as oil prices continue to climb, we are all going need to make choices as to how that oil is best used.

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Getting Started in Landscape Design

One of the first things students should be doing after graduating, is contact their local Architects.

They are a ready made source of work and because of new planning regulations, many applications now require a planting plan as part of the planning conditions.

As qualified designers, you should be able to offer architects:

1. A full planting service to include specification and 5 year maintenance schedule.
2. A Arboriculture method statement
3. A Tree survey to BS5837 (2005)
4. A RPA plan and APN12 recommendations

In addition to this you can also offer a full 3D perspective and rendering service if you CAD skills are up to scratch

All of the above should be laid out in a letter to the architect having first found out his/her name so you can address it to them personally.

You then follow up this letter with a call a few days later enquiring if they received the information and if you can be of any further help.

Think about it!  If a homeowner builds an extension they will change the footprint of the garden.  As a result the garden will need re-planning.  By offering to assist the architect they can provide a cheep and very lucrative source of work.

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Garden Designer Interview: Duncan Heather

Thursday, October 24, 2013 at 10:18

In our series of interviews with garden designers that have a plethora of knowledge and talent, we at Notcutts were lucky enough to have caught up with one of Europe’s most successful garden designers, Duncan Heather.

Duncan Heather When reading Duncan Heather’s biography you can’t help but be impressed. He is one of Europe’s most successful garden designers, winning five gold, one silver and one bronze medal along with three best show awards for his work. Duncan trained under and worked for John Brookes – one of the most influential garden designers of the 20^thCentury. In 1991 while working for Mr Brookes who is known for the world famous Denmans garden in West Sussex, Duncan was offered a directorship, something he declined in favour of concentrating on his own design practice in Henley-on-Thames.

Duncan splits his professional time working on a variety of garden design projects with lecturing at the Oxford College of Garden Design. He is the Founder and Principle of the college, since its inception in 1992, Duncan now offers a diploma course which can be obtained via online lectures, tutorials and video lectures.

We were lucky enough to catch up with Duncan to discover what it was like to train under and work with John Brookes, and what he believes is the key ingredient to a well thought-out and executed garden design.

What was it like to train under and work with John Brookes?

I rate John as one of the top designers of the 20^th Century and he will go down in history as such. I was very privileged to be his design assistant and one of a handful of people to work with him. Working with him gave me a deeper insight into how his design philosophy (called Pattern Analysis) works, although he has written numerous books about design. It was this insight that helped me to set up Oxford College of Garden Design and reach the goals I wanted to achieve.

John developed ‘Pattern Analysis’, which is the polar opposite of the ‘SAD’ technique most garden designers are taught, allowing designers to create modern art within the garden.  The boundaries of the garden, act as a picture frame.  With the house always being the most important element of the design. An imaginary grid is setup, which is unique to the site and is created using the proportion of the house. As a result all the patterns created within the picture frame, relates back to the house in scale. The spaces within the design, can represent water, paving, lawn or planting and the lines dictate where a hedge set of steps or wall can be placed.

It sounds as though you have been extremely influenced by John Brookes, even mentioning his Pattern Analysis as a way of teaching. How does the Oxford College of Garden Design differentiate with ‘John Brookes: An introduction to garden design’?

John is no longer teaching a face to face course, but does teach a four-week online course with my sister school, MyGardenSchool . The classes I teach with Oxford College of Garden Design are intended to teach those who are wishing to become professional  garden designers, whereas MyGardenSchool aims to teach horticultural classes to the general public.

Both John and I co-wrote the classes taught at MyGardenSchool, and John is available to answer any questions, help with any design elements people may have and mark their work. He is very much involved in teaching and has embraced new technology throughout his career. We are both very excited about online learning, and I really believe this is the future; within a decade I believe all universities will be teaching their lectures this way.

You and Elspeth Briscoe founded MyGardenSchool  the world’s first virtual gardening school and you’ve also launched MyPhotoSchool. When you’re not lecturing how do you spend your time? I’ve noticed your garden is quite large, have you found time to do all the garden chores yourself?

My wife Carol, does most of the gardening, but yes I do a little work here and there. I tend to use my time to build and run my businesses, blog, do a little SEO and teach online. I am very lucky when it comes to how I spend my time. I love gardening and this is my full time job and photography is a great hobby of mine and I’ve been able to incorporate this into my work load too.  MyPhotoSchool was founded after our Flower Photography course proved to be the most popular class we had to offer and since then we have been able to ask top photographers to teach at our online school.

Following your article ‘Would you be a better Landscape Designer if you were Dyslexic?’ and being dyslexic yourself, do you believe it has made you a better designer?

Those with dyslexia tend to see things more holistically. We’re more arty than analytical. Do I think it has made me a better designer? I think it has helped. I struggle less with visualising what I want to do. When I walk into a garden, within half an hour I have a clear plan of what I intend to do with that space.

What do you believe to be the key ingredient to a well thought out and executed garden design?

The house and site are the main factors for every garden design. What a lot of people believe is the most important aspect of garden design is the client, but what I want to create is a garden  with longevity. Although the client is important, after all they are paying the bill, you also need to ensure the next owners like the garden too. It has to work with the house and location. The style and location of the house needs to be put at the forefront of any design, whether it is a countryside setting or in a more urban environment. The architecture is the main focal point; it is the beginning and end of all design. The design then has to revolve around it.

What influenced your garden? Are there places you like to source inspiration from?

I have a two acre garden, which is located in a heavily woodland environment. One part of my garden is filled with beach woodland which makes it difficult to grow anything, not even brambles could grow under the trees due to the lack of light. So in the second part of my garden, I removed 60 of the trees and create two woodland glades. One is grass and the other is a natural duck pond.

What inspires me is light. When you walk into a church with beautifully painted stain glass windows and they catch the light it can be breathtaking, and often makes the hairs on your neck stand up. This is what I have created in my garden with mounded flower beds (two to three feet high); it’s wonderful to see plants with a natural back light. This height, or having the border westerly faced, ensures that you can create shafts of lights. When I walk through my garden, I will get a different feel at all times of the day. Playing with light quality inspires me and if a designer gets it right, you can create shadows that dance on the grass and take the art of design to another level.

Do you think Chelsea Flower Show is a good place to start pulling ideas for your garden if you’re a novice?

To me the Chelsea Flower Show is a complete waste of time. The RHS are not going to like what I say, but I feel it’s the same old designers, techniques and gardens just rehashed year upon year. It is dated and irrelevant.

I always suggest to my students that they go to the International Garden Festival at Chaumont-sur-Loire in France. Each year 30 gardens are built by architects, designers or anyone who is artist and not bogged down by planting. They create mind blowing art installations within hedged exteriors that are not large in scale, but gigantic in artistic flare. They use sound, light, water, reflectivity, shadow and mirroring to create something that pushes the boundaries in design.

Trees seem to take centre stage in your garden; what do you look for when buying a young tree?

I take a look at the roots to make sure it is healthy and prefer pot bound trees. I look out for a good, strong trunk that is damage free and has a good head of branches with two or three leaders, and often opt for trees with 8-12cm to 16-18cm girth. I prefer to plant young trees as they don’t need as much TLC as mature trees and tend to get away more quickly. 

What advice can you offer those wishing to build a magical garden from scratch?

Take your time; a garden isn’t like a house and you can complete the build over the course of many years; but do have a master plan to work with. If you don’t feel you have the qualifications to draw up a plan, bring someone in to help you and don’t be afraid to gain help in building your garden.

Although this is a cliché, the garden is an extension of the home, especially now as we can incorporate the outside sofas and art. I use photography in my garden to create an art installation; experiment with different ideas. Segregate parts of the garden with natural walls or use meshing with photographs for a modern twist; this is especially great for urban environments. Light control is also great to experiment with as you can create all sorts of atmospheres.

What does the magic of gardening mean to you?

In the spring time I love to go outside, sit on my deck with a glass of wine and listen to the birds singing. There is nowhere else I’d rather be and my wife and I never chose to travel in April because of this.

The garden is the most magical retreat and if you get it right you can create a real oasis. In urban environments you can use the sound of water to mask on-going traffic or add screens to create privacy. When you sit in your garden the pace of life changes, your quality of life improves in this space you’ve created

 

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How Art, the Devil and Gardens go Hand in Hand.

Once a year I take my students to the Tate Modern gallery in London. As part of their course they have to complete a pictorial timeline, comparing art , architecture, gardens, & Socio-economic influences, using thumbnail pictures to create visual links between each category.

This isn’t just another academic exercise. It has real world use for students, enabling them to understand what has gone on in the past and so allowing them to move into the future.

We teach contemporary design at the Oxford College of Garden Design, but it could be argued that a designer should be able to turn their hand to any style, in any period of history, provided they understand the principles of 3 dimensional special design.

Pergola or Sculpture or Both?

Yes, this exercise helps students put into context how each of the four categories influences the other, but it does more than this. It introduces us (some for the first time) to the concept of art as a major influencing factor in all aspects of our lives.

Initially, I get the students to attend under the pretext of seeing the art, not just as a photo in a book, but as it was supposed to be seen, in context, life size and in the flesh.

I get them to sketch, not to improve their drawing skills, but to improve their ability to see.

This week is the students last critique before they present their Project 1to the clients. It’s no accident that the Tate visit co-insides with this.

Having fulfilled the client brief, this is their last chance to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. This is where an average design can become a gold medal winning garden.

I mentions USP’s in an earlier blog but can’t stress enough how important detail is to successful design. It’s at this point in the course that I start to hammer in the mantra ‘the devils in the detail’

The drawings made at the Tate, now become the next design exercise. Weather they become garden floor plans like John Brookes penguin book garden, or landscape drawing or garden sculpture or even bespoke furniture . It doesn’t really matter what they do, so long as they start to think outside of the box. Even if they don’t all get it immediately, some way down the road I hope they all become free thinking, conceptual designers, able to see the potential in the mundane and the extraordinary in the ordinary.

The reason the Oxford College of Garden Design produces the UK’s top design students is because we see garden design, not as a horticultural subject but as art and I believe art and life go hand in hand.

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How to Avoid Your Contractor Going Bankrupt!

Whether a designer or client, in these hard economic times, you can’t have failed to notice more and more small businesses going to the wall. 

Whether they are nurseries, landscaping or building firms, it’s hard to make a living right now, jobs are scarce and margins tight.

A worst case scenario, is for the contractor to go under, halfway through a job, potentially costing the client $1000’s as well as designer a monumental headache, trying to find another firm to finish the work.

A designer may even be held partly liable, swept up in any legal action. So you need to be doubly careful when selecting contractors to tender and don’t skimp on the due diligence.

Taking a contractor’s word, that they are financially solvent is no longer adequate. Before signing the contract, bank references should be taken up and the client should be advised in writing to to do a credit check with a firm such as Dun & Bradstreet.

However even this may not be enough.  On larger jobs, lasting several months, the contractor could still run into difficulties. Either through poor management, or if one of  their suppliers goes bankrupt and takes them down in the process.

There is little you can do about the latter, but the designer can help manage the contract and at the same time protect the client from paying too much up front before work is completed and materials are on site.

The first and most important document you should insist on, before work starts on site is a daily work schedule. This is a day by day breakdown of what work will be carried out, to include in what order the jobs are to be completed and the number of man days involved.

Small contractors are sometimes reluctant to provide these, as they involve hours of preparation, but I make this a contractual requirement and won’t let a project start before the client and I have both received a copy.

This document allows all parties to monitor the progress of the job.  The designer and client can see at a glance, that the work is on schedule and the contractor can also plan when materials and plant should be ordered, so the work is not delayed due to material hold ups.

In fact, once the contactors see the benefits of this document they will continue to prepare one for each and every job they do.  Not only will this help protect your clients by keeping the job on schedule it will also likely improve the contractors profitability.

Secondly the designer can protect the client by ‘Project Administering’ the contract. Note the word ‘Administer’ NOT ‘Manage’ Most designers are not qualified to ‘Project Manage’ a site, as this implies quality control and would require the designer to be onsite throughout the build.

At the Oxford College of Garden Design  our students are taught to project administrate jobs. ‘Project Administering’ a contract, involves weekly site meetings to assess the works progress.  The designer can remind the contractor to order materials in good time to avoid delays and is also in charge of signing off the weekly/monthly invoicing.

This involves making sure that the contractor only invoices for work completed and for materials on site. An agreed % is then held back (usually 5%) until the penultimate invoice when only 2.5% is withheld until the final certificate of completion is issued (usually after a defects liability period of 6 months)

By going through this process the designer is ensuring that the client never overpays before work is completed onsite.  In the event that the contractor does go bankrupt, then the client should still have enough funds to bring in a second contractor to finish the job.

Some professional bodies guarantee their members, so it would be worth looking carefully at these and maybe choosing contractor.  Organisations like SPATA (Swimming Pool and Allied Trade Association) in the UK guarantee that if one of their members goes under part way through a job another member will finish the work for the outstanding agreed contract cost.

Finally a last piece of advice is to split large contracts down into smaller ones. Consider different contractors for different parts of the job to spread the risk.

Ground workers for excavation, drainage and contouring; Pool contractors for swimming pools; pond and lake specialists for water features; Stone and masonry specialists for hard landscape features such as paving and walls; Turf/Sod contractors for lawns; Irrigation engineers and lighting technicians; and finally soft landscape specialist. 

I have always preferred women contractors to do my planting, as I consider them more conscientious and careful with young plants.

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Carol’s Garden of the Month (November)

Carols garden guide for the Oxford College of Garden Design

I first visited Denmans  the garden of the venerated John Brookes many years ago on a hot sunny day in July and was so very excited to be there after eagerly devouring every book he had written and attempting to create my own garden around his design principles.

It did not disappoint although sadly on reflection mine was an insult to design and the great man himself!!!!

I have been there several times since as I am now privileged to know John, most recently just last week and it was such a different experience seeing it in late autumn.

At this time of year it is easy to see that It is clearly designed around exactly the same philosophy as is now taught at the Oxford College of Garden Design!

The strong use of ground pattern creates an underlying framework that holds the design together creating a strong and impelling route of flow – similar to my own garden! At last I have a garden that has got it right although I personally take little credit for that!

View Full Album

Denmans is admittedly 30+ years old and by John’s own admission some of the planting needs updating and plans are afoot to start again in the walled garden area which is exciting!

Nevertheless there is still plenty to enjoy in the plant department with loads of texture and colour as the photos prove! However right now it is a fantastic garden to visit to see the bare bones of a great design but if you are a “plant-a-holic” wait until June or go twice!

The garden is open all year and there is a really nice little garden centre attached to it that sells everything from a primrose to a £3000 full sized sculpture of a vestal virgin (well virgin’s don’t come cheap!)

Also there is a great restaurant with loads of quirky stuff in it (no not the food which is lovely) .

Go and pay homage!!!

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New Book by Luciano Giubbilei: Nature and Human Intervention

Nature and Human Intervention is Luciano Giubbilei’s second book. The book details the process behind the 2011 Laurent-Perrier Chelsea Flower Show gold-medal garden,a collaboration between three acclaimed artists-garden designer Luciano Giubbilei, architect Kengo Kuma,and sculptor Peter Randall-Page.

Captured in 250 colour photographs by Steve Wooster and Allan Pollock-Morris and essays by garden historian Kathryn Aalto,the book shows how artists, craftsmen, and suppliers worked together to expose, highlight, and craft beauty from Nature. “We return time and again to the comfortable vocabularies, images, sounds, memories, thoughts and feelings that constitute the boundaries of our experience and expression,”says Luciano  Giubbilei.“Yet every now and then, we encounter a breakthrough moment– a rare instant when the daunting constraints of possibility melt away and when we gain the courage to focus through new lenses.

”The book is published as a limited edition of 1000 numbered copies, of which only 500 copies are to be released to the general public. Retailing at £35.00 to purchase a copy please visit www.lucianogiubbilei.com.

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6 Must See Garden Festivals for your 2012 Diary

Chaumont-sur-Loire - Garden Festival (April 22 to 16th October) This French show is probably one of the most exciting and query of all the festivals

Chelsea Flower Show (May 22-26) Relatively small but oh-so-smart, has now spawned its own Chelsea Fringe

Singapore Garden Festival (July 7-15) A biennial blockbuster majoring on spectacular orchids and top international designers.

Floriade (April 5-October 7) Held every 10 years in Venlo, Holland. An improving mix of environmental message and traditional commercial horticulture.

Philadelphia International Flower Show (March 4-11) Next year’s theme is Hawaii, the scale is vast and outstanding horticulturists flock here from all over the United States

Landesgartenschau Nagold (April 27-October 7) The Germans take gardening very seriously and this event is a must-see for anyone interested in new ideas about environmental design

 

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Plagiarism is alive and well

Looking for design inspiration and your USP

One of the first things I recommend to students (or even qualified designers for that matter) before they start a new design, is to look through books and magazines for design inspiration.

When my student from the Oxford College of Garden Design first start designing, their ‘design library’ i.e. their knowledge of shape, pattern, and garden features stored in their brains, is pretty much empty, so the only way they can fill it, is to expose themselves to as much content as possible.

Magazines such as Gardens Illustrated and English Garden are recommend reading as too is the Society of Garden Designers magazine ‘The Garden Design Journal’ edited by the excellent Tim Richardson. The designer is looking for two specific things at this early stage

• A Floor Plan: Ideas for shapes and patterns that will fit into their new garden. This can be achieved by studying garden layout plans in books and online. Students are looking for strong ground patterns with good inter-locking shapes that, after a little modification could transpose well into their own design.
• The Magic Feature: Secondly that little bit of magic that sets their design apart from everyone else’s. This in marketing terms would be your USP (unique selling point) It could be a sculpture or water feature or even built in furniture, but whatever it is, it should be the wow factor. Something the client is going to love, is unique and if the garden was to appear in a magazine would be the main picture to illustrate the article.

Books are another excellent source of inspiration and students should be studying not just garden/landscape design but architecture and interior design as well. Books written by garden designer John Brookes, or Terrance Conran are excellent sources of inspirations, so to is Barber Hunt and Elizabeth Whateley’s book ‘Aspects of the Garden Design Process’

By seeking inspiration from the past, modifying and adapting it to make it their own, students will gradually develop their own design philosophy, and aspire to take it into the future.

 

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5 Golden Landscape Design Rules

 

Rule 1: The House is the Most Important Part of Any Garden.

You can’t ignore it! It’s almost always the largest, most dominant structure in the garden. Your journey starts and ends with the house and therefore any garden plan, should always start from the building and work outwards.

Rule 2: The Designers Main Objective is to Link Building with Site.

Probably the most important rule of all and yet the one that is least understood. This rule applies to any landscape scheme, whether residential or commercial. If the design is to be successful, then it must blend the building seamlessly into its environment. To achieve this, the designer needs to be able to combine symmetry with biology, i.e. architecture with landscape. Because most buildings are made from geometric shapes and the garden is essentially a biological environment, great care is needed to join these two opposing forms together. Try linking them too quickly and they will clash, creating a meaningless amorphous squiggle where the house looks like it’s just landed from space.

Rule 3 All shape close to the house should be Symmetrical.

This follows on from rule 2. Because the building is predominantly made up of straight lines based on squares and rectangles, the area around the building should copy these geometric, mathematical shapes to help link the house with the garden. The terraces, paths, formal pond and planting beds should be designed using straight lines.

If you don’t believe me, I will try to convince you by using an interior design analogy. “You would not put an amoebic shaped rug into a rectangular shaped room. Instead you would use a geometrical rug/carpet.” The same rules of interior design are just a relevant for outside design. The lawn is the carpet of the garden and the worst thing you can do, is to put a wiggly edged lawn into a rectangular shaped garden. Creating wiggles and squiggles won’t make your garden look natural. Nature makes it natural! As soon as you add planting to a straight edged border the plants grow and spill over and soften all the hard lines.

Rule 4 Use a Grid to help you Design.

Because you want your garden to link back to the house, it make sense to use shapes and pattern on your plan, that relate back to the scale and proportion of the building. “The Scale of the Grid is derived from the Mass of the Property”. Every grid is unique to site. This may in reality appear subliminal, but using a grid which is derived from the proportions and scale of the building means that all the patterns you use for the garden plan, relate directly back to the house and the grid also acts as a guide for the designer so they can quickly check size and scale of different features.

Rule 5 There are No Rules.

This isn’t strictly true because I have just given you a small sample of some. However you first need to understand the rules of geometry and design before you can break them. If we all stuck rigidly to rules, we would end up with some very dull design, but conversely, few universities and colleges give any clear guidance to design teaching, so that students graduate without a clear design philosophy.

At the Oxford College of Garden Design we run a professional On-line postgraduate level course and together with our sister site MyGardenSchool we also offer 4 week On-line short courses in all aspects of gardening. One of the main reasons our students have been so successful, is that we do teach a design philosophy by verbalising and explaining why something works and why something doesn’t.

Chaumont! Probably the best garden show in the world?

Chaumont: Gardening! –From Erotic to Rude.
As I write this blog I am reminded of a rather embarrassing episode that happened to me a couple of years back, when I visited the USA to do a radio interview on European garden trends.

It was for “W.H.B.S.Y. -coming to you from down-town Sacramento” (or something like that– all these radio stations sound the same to me!)

I had flown into San Francisco, on the late flight the previous evening.  Then driven 3 hours north east to Auburn, downed the better part of a bottle of California Red before collapsing in to bed, only to be woken at some ungodly hour the next morning, to drive back down the freeway to Sacramento, to do the “Garden Guru’s” 9am Saturday morning radio show.

Not surprisingly I was a little jet lagged, if not a little hung over. Definitely not a good combination when doing live public radio!

I was also extremely nervous, unlike UK radio, when you are lucky to get a 10 minute slot, this show was on for a whole hour with me being the only guest. The way I was feeling, I wasn’t sure I could manage 60 seconds let alone 60 minutes.

The studio was not what I had expected either and was little bigger than a passport photo booth. Rob Littlepage, who was standing in for the Don Yacuzami (the regular Garden Guru) squeezed his way back into the room and donned his headphones.

I sat down next to him but couldn’t get the door closed as my chair leg was blocking the entrance. After some discussion the door was left open and the producer Rick (or Ricky as he preferred to be called) bustled off into the next kiosk where he sat down behind a large glass screen and a bank for dials and buttons.

As I watched the seconds ticking away on the studio clock the intro. music faded in, sounding suspiciously like the theme-tune to the Archers:-and we were off.

Things started well, Rob did the introductions and thanked our sponsors. I manages to talk coherently for the first 20 minutes being periodically interrupted by callers phoning in to ask questions or publicise local events, the most notable being a ‘Toe-mat-toe tasting’, at the local nursery. “32 varieties!!! ……… I don’t know they had 32 varieties.”

I had just started to relax and let my concentration wane when Rob asked me about the contempory Garden show at Chaumont in France. All of a sudden I had a complete panic attack.


I should explain at this point that the French garden show has a theme each year and this year, typical of the French was ‘eroticism’. Knowing how prudish middle America can be, I new that this was not the subject for a Saturday morning breakfast show.

Unfortunately my mouth had other Ideas. Like a frozen rabbit caught in car headlights, I heard myself discussing one particular garden dominated by a pair of large 15ft high pink breasts.

My mind was screaming stop, but my mouth just kept on going. Rob had lost the plot at this point and was having a fit of the giggles.

The producer was wildly flailing his hand across his throat in a sawing motion and I was only saved by the timely interruption of an advert for ‘Sun Dance computers’.

On listening to a tape of the show afterwards, I had even managed to describe the viewing tower behind the garden for those people who wanted a birds-eye view of the giant mammaries.

Oh well, that’s probably the end of my radio career.

Nesting Marigolds

As for Chaumont sur Loire I would thoroughly recommend a visit even if you don’t like gardening. I take the student from the Oxford College of Garden Design there every year.  The Chateau is situated at the top of a cliff overlooking the river Loire and the show is situated in the park behind the castle in about ten acres. You enter, down a spiral staircase build into the hollow of a tree.

Cross a bridge over a 50ft gorge to some steps on the other side and finally, up into the show ground. The exhibits are identical in shape and size and each surrounded by a beech hedge.

Giant Corset

The exhibition attracts submissions from around the world with

every designer interpreting the brief in a different way.

From a nest of pink Marigold cloves to erupting luv bubbles (yes I didn’t understand this one either!) to a giant corset that you both walk through and round to a garden designed to imitate lingerie

Erupting Luv Bubbles

The setting is beautiful, the gardens imaginative and the restrant is to die for. It has to be one of the best (if not the wackyest) garden shows in the world.
For further information on Chaumont-sur-Loire
Tel: +33 (0) 254 209922
www.chaumont-jardins.com

 Negligee screening

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Specifications for Garden Designer Pt 3

The relationship between drawn and written information

On the smallest of schemes, annotated details may be all that is necessary and putting specification and drawing together may also assist the contractor.

However, on larger projects there is a danger that the specification will become dispersed onto several drawings, with repetition and contradictions creeping in. To avoid this, it is recommended that all the specification is found in one place. The drawn details can then linked to the appropriate specification description by systematic cross referencing, using the specifications own clause numbers.

This then leaves the question of the more general information such as the quality of topsoil or the strength of mortar? It is rarely adequate to leave such details to the expertise and discretion of the chosen contractor. In order to provide a professional service to your client, it often requires at least a few pages of specification separate from the drawings attached to the planting schedules, or the letter of invitation to tender.

An imperfect solution

I have touched on some of the obstacles which confront the designer and the contractor when faced with agreeing and achieving the desired standards on site;

• the need for reasonable financial certainty without being too restrictive,
• the huge amount of technical and contractual knowledge required;
  
• the designers’ time needed to tie up the more important loose ends,
  
• the absence of a simple appropriate standard form of contract.
  

Few projects are standard. Most are unique ‘prototypes’ designed and detailed from scratch.
Using an identical specification on every project, is therefore not only inappropriate, but may also be dangerous.

The concept of a ‘model’ specification is rather different from a standard solution because, the ‘model’ specification is designed to be edited by the designer to remove all extraneous information and to insert any additional information the particular project requires. The result is a tailor made document which should help the contractor.

Producing a project specification takes time and eats into the fee but the time is reduced with practice. No specification can be totally comprehensive. The designer’s decision on what to put in and what to leave out is a matter of judgement. That judgement will be made based on several factors such as the complexity of the project, the known competence of the contractor and whether the designer will be visiting site during the construction phase. Specification writing tries to be exact but in practice is an imprecise art.

A ‘model’ specification

The essentials of a ‘model’ specification are three-fold:
First it provides a familiar ‘structure’ within which every subject has its logical place.
Finding the appropriate instructions becomes quicker and easier because of this.
Secondly it can provide a check list of subjects which may need the designer’s attention. The designer can decide either to delete the subject as inappropriate or to include it with or without amendment.
Finally, by offering the designer a model clause the designer has guidance on written style and technical content.
I am sure that many designers have heard of the NBS Landscape Specification or the more modest publication “Specification Writing for Garden Design”(2) These model specifications can provide help and much needed technical guidance for the hard pressed Garden Designer. Writing a specification from scratch is a very daunting task; using a model specification makes that task considerably easier.

Even the best project specification and drawings in the world will not produce high quality work from a poor contractor. Things are less likely to go wrong with a good contractor. So every designer’s priority should be to assemble a list of good local contractors.
Then, provide them with all that essential specification information in writing by one means or another so that a proper price is tendered. Things are less likely to go wrong if the contractor has tendered a realistic price and is in possession of all the relevant information from the start. If things do go wrong, you and your client are better protected if the required quality is defined clearly and concisely.

Specifications for Garden Designer Pt 2

Most designers find specification writing a necessary evil.

Is it even necessary?

In a limited number of cases a formal specification document is probably not needed provided the essential information is given to the contractor in some other written form.

The two types of information

The written information traditionally included in a specification is divided into two main categories –the contractual obligations commonly known as the Preliminaries and General Conditions (the quality of workmanship and materials). Essential content of the Preliminaries which are vital to most projects are the start and finish dates, insurance and health and safety requirements. There are, of course other things which may need to be agreed such as the protection of existing trees, the arrangement of stage payments for work completed or the limitation of working hours, but these matters are often partly covered in a standard form of contract such as those issued by the JCLI, JCT.

The problem is that none of these standard forms of contract is entirely appropriate for small garden projects and even when they are used, they are usually completed after negotiations have taken place and a price agreed. Vital information such as the examples given above is needed before the contractor can tender a firm price. The designer is therefore left with the need to confirm such matters in writing at the beginning of the tendering process.

The options for defining quality

Before attempting to answer the above, let us first consider the question of quality. Unlike contractual and administrative matters, quality is very much more difficult to define. One way is to specify a brand name, but this may financially restrict the contractor unnecessarily.

Another method is to refer to Standards, published by the British Standards Institute or to other standards such as the National Plant Specification. Incorporating another standard by reference is often the most comprehensive and fool-proof method. However this requires a degree of knowledge about the content of those standards, both by the designer and the contractor and this is not always available.

Thirdly, the designer may write a description of quality themselves. To do so, requires practice and the development of a concise and an unambiguous style of writing and requires an depth of knowledge and skill that only the most accomplished parishioners should attempt.

In a limited number of instances, the most direct method of controlling quality is a reference to an agreed sample. This approach can be particularly appropriate for the appearance of hard landscape features like paving or walls.

The sample may be one which is constructed on site by the contractor prior to the start of the main work, or a previously constructed project preferably by the same craftsman. The advantage of a sample is that the client can be fully involved and can understand exactly what they are getting right from the start of the contract.

The use of samples

allows the contractor and his craftsmen to contribute to the creative process and gives them a positive involvement which not only draws on the contractors’ expertise but raises the craftsmen’s commitment and morale.

Monitoring the performance of the contractor is also simplified by making a direct comparison between what is built and the agreed sample.
So not every specification for quality depends solely on a long written description, but, given that there are several possible approaches to specifying quality, all of them in the end will require a degree of written clarification.

Q&A
Do you always right a specification?

Do you use a 'Model Specification' or do you write your own clauses?

Please let me know I'm always interested in you feed back and comments

5 Applications to Help you Design Your Own Garden

 

This article, I admit to writing with a massive pinch of salt, because most people understand that the computer is only as creative as the person using it.

At The Oxford College of Garden Design we teach VectorWorks Landmark, but this is  expensive and more complex than most homeowners need. For those wishing to have a go them selves, we have several 4 week online courses at MyGardenSchool on both planting and landscape design. The following list of software I hope may be of interest to those wishing to have a go themselves.

SmartDraw 2010
SmartDraw is a drawing application to design floor plans business graphics, diagrams and charts of all kinds. The program improves communication, organization, management and planning by drawing any processes. If you know Microsoft’s Visio, this program will be familiar to you. The application also has tutorials to help.

DeltaCad
DeltaCad is more than just a paint program, because you can edit, scale, move, rotate, copy, etc. individual objects, not just paint pixels. DeltaCad allows you to zoom in to draw fine details or zoom out to see the whole drawing.

 

Showoff Home Design
The program features many in-built tools and options. The user needs Internet connection to work with the application. It features a category list with an option to choose annuals. The catalogue tab helps to choose from landscape plants, home improvements, furnishings and décor, or other items that cover a broad range of home improvements.

Realtime Landscaping Architect
New landscape design software for creating professional plans and presentations. Design houses, decks, fencing, yards, gardens, swimming pools, water features, and much more with easy-to-use tools. Give your plans a hand-drawn look using a wide variety of plant symbols and colour washes. Add plant labels automatically using the wizard, and add a plant legend with just a few mouse clicks.

Home Designer Landscape and Deck
With Home Designer Landscape & Deck by Chief Architect Software you can plan and design your perfect outdoor living space! Landscape & Deck makes it easy to quickly design the virtual look and feel of your backyard, deck, patio, pool or other outdoor project. Just point-and-click to add pre-arranged landscaping beds and any of over 4,000 Library items and over 3,600 realistic plants to your design.

Credit Crunch or Designers’ PunchLine?

The credit crunch looks likely to prove an unexpected blessing-in-disguise for garden designers and those thinking of switching to Landscape Design as either a first or second career.

How so?

Because according to a new survey just published by the UK Building Society, Alliance & Leicester, there are still millions of UK residents looking to move house over the next 12 months and therefore, seeking to do everything they can to improve the value and desirability of their current property.

The survey of over 2,000 UK households was carried out by Opinium Research on behalf of the Alliance & Leicester and showed that about one in eight homeowners are still planning to sell in the coming year, despite the gloomy downtown in the housing market.

And of those planning to make significant improvements, almost 60% said they were intending to improve their outdoor space which is where the good news for designers comes in. For example, in a street with two fairly matched houses on the market, the one with the most attractive or well-designed outdoor space will be the first to sell.

As a general rule, designers can tell potential clients that they need to spend around 10% of the existing value of their home on the outdoor space to see a guaranteed return of up to 20% uplift on the value.

That means if someone whose home is presently worth £600,000 spends £60,000 on their garden, they will then be able to market their home at up to £720,000 which in the current financial market is a better return than most savings accounts.

And, for working garden designers, a very persuasive argument to get potential clients to commit to a quality design project.

Is This Good Design?……..or Meaningless Scribbles!

It’s great that so many universities are jumping onto the garden design band-wagon because it not only spreads the word, but helps create interest in the subject.

The problem arises when what is being taught, amounts to little more than ‘meaningless scribbles’. I appreciate what I am saying is controversial but this Video to me, represents everything bad about garden design teaching.

This is not supposed to be a personal attack on Dr. Ann Marie VanDerZanden, but why did she choose such a dreadful design example?  What she is passing off as a ‘typical residential design’, shows a fundamental lack of design appreciation.

The pattern is anything but simple, looking more like an angry jelly fish attacking a building.  Rhythm and line remain unexplained and she then goes on to say that proportion can’t be seen in a plan view….may be not in this design, but it should be there!
Balance was tackled next and asymmetry and symmetry introduced, but to suggest that this ‘amoeba’ is a symmetrical design makes me wonder if we are looking at the same drawing, as there is nothing formal about this plan.

The building looks like it has just landed from space and been 'plonked' onto the landscape.

The organic shapes used, show a total disregard for the geometry contained within the building and to my mind the house and garden quite simply clash.  

I think this design is Awful!!!!! ……….Yet this is the design style being taught to thousands of would-be garden designers around the world every year, by teachers who should stick to horticulture but  never venture near a drawing board!
I appreciate that design is subjective and I would love to talk to these people to understand where they are coming from, however, 70 years after Thomas Church and 40 years after John Brookes why is this mediocrity still being taught?

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Does Garden Design Have a Future in these Times of Austerity

Yesterday the UK officially entered a double dip recession. The first in nearly 50 years. Led by the building industry, it’s predicted that this sector will remain in negative grown for at least the rest of this year.

With house building at an all time low, and Europe and America in the worst recession since the 1930’s, what will happen to the middle classes, that up till now have been the life blood or our industry?

Garden design as an industry, has had 20 years of unparalleled growth. Prices in the housing market have risen across Europe (and more recently America) at a staggering and in hind-sight, unsustainable rate.

It goes without saying that the housing market and the landscape industry go hand in hand. There have been housing market slumps before and the garden design industry has always recovered.  But this time it could be different. 

Countries like Spain and Ireland have huge housing estates abandoned like ghost towns, and parts of the US have deserted subdivisions, reminiscent of 1930’s dust bowl America, where thousands of acres of farmland where abandoned.

With house price crashes in some countries in excess of 50%, it’s going to take more than a generation to put right these wrongs and as a result, the middle classes are going to be squeezed very hard, for a very long time.

So what effect for the garden design industry?  I believe it’s inevitable that the industry will contract.  More people will be fighting for the smaller bread and butter jobs while the upper end will remain strong. 

Those designers who are properly qualified, stand the best change of making a living.  Charging professional frees and offering a professional service. 

Fewer people will enter the professions; and those that do, will need to do their homework very carefully.  Too many courses cater for the “ladies who lunch brigade”. They focus on the froth, rather than teaching their students the professional practice side of the industry. 

The Oxford College of Garden Design took the decision last year to only offer our on-line course for the foreseeable future. Thus allowing our students to continue to work and earn a living, while they study.

“What most course don’t tell you is that it will take another 2-3 years after you graduate, before you will earn a living”

By pre-recording all our lectures and offering them as downloadable video tutorials student can continue to train while still bringing in a salary.

Too may student graduate, only to then drop out after 12 –18 months because they can’t afford to live.

If you want to thrive in the 21st century you need to think smart, plan ahead and have the best training you can afford.

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10 Garden Books That Changed My Life

As a teacher and Principal of the Oxford College of Garden Design I am always wary of encouraging students to  buy books rather than borrow them from a library, as fewer than 50% ever get read once purchased. But there are a few must-have books that no self respecting designer should be without, either as a source of inspiration or a vital source of knowledge. 

The following list, are the books that have most influenced my life as a garden designer. I hope they may prove of interest and may tempt some of you to read those that are unknown to you.

Gardens are for People
Thomas Church was the father of Contemporary design. This text contains the essence of Church's design philosophy, as well as practical advice. It is illustrated by site plans and photographs of some of the 2000 gardens that Church designed during his career. Called "the last great traditional designer and the first great modern designer", Church was one of the central figures in the development of the modern Californian garden. For the first time, West Coast designers based their work not on imitation of East Coast traditions, but on climatic, landscape and lifestyle characteristics unique to California and the West. Church viewed the garden as a logical extension of the house, with one extending naturally into the other.

Garden Design
If Church was the father of garden design, Sylvia Crowe was the mother and if you have ever read any of John Brookes’s books, read this; and you will understand where he got his design philosophy from.  Now unfortunately out of print, I hope one day someone will have the intelligence to realise the significance of this book and reprint it in its entirety. Beg borrow or steel a copy, but this is  a MUST READ BOOK

 Room Outside
The Book that kick started the garden design revolution back in 1970.This is a thoroughly revised and beautifully illustrated edition of the book that first made garden design accessible to everyone. In "Room Outside" John Brookes invented the highly practical concept of the garden, however large or small, as a usable extension of the home. That was nearly forty years ago and, while the range of products and materials has increased dramatically, the role the garden can play has not changed at all. Indeed, as a retreat from the hectic world of work and as an overflow to family life, our outdoor space has become incredibly important and "Room Outside" is even more relevant to 21st century living. 

A Place in the country
John Brookes’s A Place in the Country another book sadly out of print, takes us away from small urban spaces and describes in detail how to organise, sort and design large rural spaces.  However it goes much further than any of his subsequent books, almost into the realm of landscape architecture for the residential site.  This book is packed with information otherwise difficult to find else- ware.  How to encourage game, woodlands and shelter belts, grazing your land, outbuilding, glass houses and conservatories and so the list goes on.  If you can find a second hand copy of this book buy it! Its a gold mine of information and one I never tire of dipping in and out of.

Bold Romantic Gardens
Another life enhancing book, which I was first introduced to, while still working for John Bookes as his design assistant back in the late 80’ early 90’s
Sadly out of print and very much a collectors item now, it was a ‘show piece’ of two American landscape Architects, Wolfgang Oehme and James Van Sweden who pioneered the use of native plants and the use of grasses for the the first time. 

Residential Landscape Architecture is an introductory text that covers the process and techniques for designing the single family residential site. It is intended for individuals who will be or are currently designing residential landscapes as a professional career. The book features a thorough, how-to explanation of each of the steps of the design process from initial contact with the client to a completed master plan.

 

Landscape Graphics The new revised edition of the classic industry reference! "Landscape Graphics" is the architect's ultimate guide to all the basic graphics techniques used in landscape design and landscape architecture. Progressing from the basics into more sophisticated techniques, this guide offers clear instruction on graphic language and the design process, the basics of drafting, lettering, freehand drawing and conceptual diagramming, perspective drawing, section elevations and more.

From Concept to Form in Landscape Design, Second Edition presents the landscape transformation process in a highly visual manner, creating both a vivid learning experience for students and a useful toolbox for working designers. Replete with compelling, valuable, and accessible insights for designing outdoor spaces, Reid′s book is an ideal blend of inspiration and application.

Planting Design
Frankly any of Ouldof’s books could be here, but this is one of my favourites.  Home gardeners with a keen interest in design, as well as professional landscape designers, will find invaluable advice in this new approach. The book focuses on the general principles behind creating successful and beautiful plant combinations in both time and space working with perennials in the context of trees, shrubs, and the surrounding landscape. The authors suggest looking across, into, and through the landscape. They ask the reader to consider the rhythms and connections in their designs, through such elements as echoes, linkages, and repetitions.

An education of a Gardener
An now for something completely different!

First published in 1962, when Page was already a well established European designer. Reading this book is one of those rare occasions when a marvellous professional such as Page, generously lets you in to share his life. Page's accounts merge the personal with the professional, and encompass a wide spectrum indeed. It is, therefore, a book to read by the small bedroom lamp, as well as in the study room, while working. It has by now become a legendary novel, a rare breed that set a precedent, although rarely followed. It is analogous to a good old-fashioned radio show - romantic, endearing and memorable.

 For our student reading list please visit out web site here

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