First in a series of blog posts showcasing some of the great ideas out there that help inspire our garden designs and will inspire you to get design motivated!!

Until our new office is completed on Canary Wharf in London I am committed to working from home in Clarkston in Glasgow.  My office measures 2m x 2m and is used by me and my apprentice designer Matthew who will be making an appearance here soon.  The home-office idea isn’t a new one but is certainly becoming more popular and more acceptable within business models: check out these ideas as featured in TreeHugger.com.

The “New Staple of the American Home”

How to sleep on the job – and get away with it!

Check out this organic and living chair by Shinwei Rhoda Yen

Must have been a fun-guy that came up with that idea!!

Garden gnomes have shifted their twee-ness and transported straight into the 21st century.  Check these wee guys out:

Get the kids involved with the garden this year:

And finally here is a fantastic new site to help you plant up those beds and borders:

Tata for now!

Nicky Patterson, Designer, GardenImprovements.com

by Nicky Patterson

1 and a half stone of beer, wine, meat and cake

I’m still with my wife’s family in Portsmouth, having spent Christmas here, and will be celebrating Hogmany tonight and welcoming in the New Year.  Being in the south of England for a couple of weeks has certainly allowed me to relax a little and remove myself from the direct responsibilities of running the business, but it has also allowed me to gather some alternative impartial opinions on the credit crunch and its consequences.

My wife’s father and step-mother both work within the public sector here, as do many who live around Hampshire due to the concentration of military and government bases down here.  What has become obvious, and has been debated by some in the newspapers of late, is that those within the public sector will probably have a very different experience of the ‘credit crunch’ than those in the private sector.

We have witnessed the wholesale failing of the banking system and the many job losses as repercussion of this failing.  We have witnessed the failing of stalwart high-street icons such as Woolworths and Wittards amongst others.  Some high-street retailers will obviously benefit in the short term from these as their share in the available retail market increases accordingly, but it is curious that the finger of fate as far as these examples have proved does indeed seem to be fickle and there are many who will lose jobs and become worse off for this but many who will remain as normal, even if with some stress of uncertainty.

The public sector however remains relatively unscathed and those who work within it might even become better off in 2009 as the VAT cuts and lowering fuel and retail prices come into effect while their employment and salary remain stable.

So how will all this ultimately affect those within the service industries; and in particular landscapers and garden designers; who are more or less in a tertiary market and as such are wholly at the mercy of the economy?

Well I, for one, am confident that, since our target market are primarily those in a middle to high income bracket, there is still a wealth of property equity out there that can be invested in home-improvements: and these are exactly the type of investments people have made in the past when the housing market has slumped.  Not only that; there is a clear difference in experience of the credit crunch thus far between those in the public sector and those in the private sector – and this does not seem to be a trend that will change significantly in 2009.  There is therefor still a significant portion of the population who will in fact have an increased disposable income which will be circulated throughout the rest of the retail industries and keep small businesses breathing.

So I am not going to hang up my sketch-book and shovel just yet: it will certainly get tough as some competitors will inevitably suffer and fail while others will in fact ‘up the ante’ which means that while there may be fewer bones to chew, it will be those who sharpen their teeth the keenest who will survive the months ahead.  I have my file out right now!

Nicky Patterson

GardenImprovements.com

Now I’m going to make this a quick one because I have just signed off in the office doing a garden design for a client in Barrhead and it’s nearly 1am already!

So here is how the fencing appeared before (or actually just a wee bit after – camera needed charged!) we started.

The original fence: not bad but not great

Original Fence: spoils the setting of the garden

So as you can see the fence didn’t present the best backdrop for the planting scheme, the water feature or indeed the garden as a whole; it sucked all the life from along a strong perimeter of what is a very narrow or shallow garden.

My idea was to update the fence while integrating it with the space – creating a feature but also a background foil.  The garden is an informal French style space and so to marry in with the existing trellis work and the paving I wanted to add some brightness to the space.  The climber’s (Wisteria x 2, Berberis x 3, Pyracantha x1) along the fence also required something to navigate along and up.

I opted for horizontal straps placed at a ratio of 3:2 where 3 is the strap width and 2 is the gap.  This is a more modern take on the horizontal ranch style of fencing common in the 70′s and 80′s but the smaller gaps reduce the security risk while also providing a stronger linear message along the perimeter.  This method also created a ‘hedge-in-the-sky’ effect for the conifer hedging along the back of the fence in the neighbour’s garden – thus making full use of the garden’s surroundings.

This was a very simple project which only required a bit of forward thinking and about £250 for the materials which for 17m length isn’t bad at all!  A whole new fence (almost) for £250?!  Yes!

So here are the results.  I took these this morning so excuse the snow!  I think you’ll agree though that a little work can do alot for your garden if used intuitively.

The new improved fence brightens the whole garden

The new fence provides a perfect foil for the planting

We painted the fence cream to match the paving and existing trellis.  We also deliberately painted the wood while wet so as to take on an instant weathered look to tie in the established garden and the theme of the space.

Anyway good luck with your fencing project if you decide to give your perimeter’s a makeover!

Cheers
Nicky Patterson

GardenImprovements.com