A small selection of gardens we have built. Including Gucci Chelsea garden 2014

in #gardening4 years ago (edited)

627B2918-D4CE-4D49-BDD9-6F44F58A27DD.jpeg

I thought I’d share with you a small selection of gardens that we have landscaped over the years, starting with this rear garden at a lovely town house situated in the English / welsh border near my home of the Forest of Dean. The garden started as a waste land, over grown with weeds, and lawn and went through a full renovation. It included an oak pergola including a hand crafted swinging bench. A kitchen garden are with raised beds built from reclaimed bricks. All paving used was local reclaimed welsh pennant flag stones. This garden was an incredible task, as all materials had to be manually lifted over a 5 foot high brick wall. That includes all slabs, bricks, sand and cement. It also includes all of the waste that was skipped coming out of the garden.

54258F5D-077F-44A3-B46E-3B99F497A87B.jpeg

562DAE8B-D295-44AD-BB0A-14555232FE02.jpeg

This next garden was probably one of our biggest projects. So much so, that I am going to split it into sections, and write about it over a few more posts. Nestled in the Herefordshire countryside, this old rectory was a beautiful country home. This section was the kitchen garden, or half of it anyway. Huge retaining walls were needed as we terraced the area. The footings were dug and the concrete had to be pumped in. Then the 17” (43cm) thick walls were built, faced with local Forest of Dean stone, using traditional lime mortar to adhere to the listed building requirements. The slabs were Indian sandstone, and piers were made from handmade Coleford bricks.

2407468A-3CCF-47F1-A980-AB0A2E95F6D3.jpeg

68D31161-CC54-474D-B2D7-D1FFF39FB4AF.jpeg

453C9C10-6C7E-4659-899C-3D084BAE446B.jpeg

7D0C1091-F0D1-4D24-BCCB-4CAC803872B7.jpeg

61276A2C-34DA-4114-8B4A-82657DF03DF5.jpeg

E9AF3D94-5401-4536-97CE-D1F28865605E.jpeg

7738D16D-69A1-4B21-BAA7-E2F860A6B84A.jpeg

69355D92-7E49-4BEE-909D-66B8601FA629.jpeg

7BC1DCC3-A8B9-4E0D-A6EF-549C64BCD1E4.jpeg

The next garden was one of the most prestigious builds we have done to date, and I doubt it will be beaten. In 2014 Sarah Eberle (multiple gold winning designer) contacted us asking us to build her Chelsea flower show garden. The sponsor was Gucci. We jumped at this opportunity and built a garden that was like no other. Unfortunately not many pictures were taken through the build as we never seemed to have a spare minute. But here was the final outcome.

7B39F323-BB5E-440E-B11D-718FBA0FA2E6.jpeg

D3CF38C1-2C19-4960-9B99-B3DE4EF0CF4B.jpeg

Here are a couple of links to various peace’s about the garden

https://www.hortweek.com/sarah-eberle-rhs-chelsea-gucci-garden-mix-seasonal-cut-flowers-challenging/landscape/article/1292825

http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG10793505/Gucci-to-design-Flora-garden-at-Chelsea-Flower-Show.html

The garden was a small 10m square plot, which was filled by a paving area that was made up of 2 huge slabs, roughly 4 tonnes each. It was then framed by a rigging styled pergola, of which very large hanging baskets were hung. The centre peace of which was the princess Grace of Monaco’s scarf that was on display between t pains of glass, set into the paved area. The flora pattern was used to launch a new line of products for Gucci.

Look out for more of our past garden projects that I will be posting about in the future. Feel free to ask any questions, and also feel free to comment, and let me know what you think.

Sort:  

Wow, impressive and beautiful work! The photo progression of the work was neat to follow, and your descriptions interesting to read. Great post, I look forward to reading more! :)

Wow thanks. Small world. I was just looking through your monomad pictures. They are really good. Both the ones out in the woods, and the macro lens one. 👍 nice job

Thank you! :) I love getting out on the nature trails near me and taking photos. Unfortunately I have not had much to post lately since winter in the northeast turns me into a hermit when I'm not working lol..

Very impressive gardens indeed.

Love that greenhouse too. Was that already there or did you put that in as well?

We sub contacted that out to a company that specialise in bespoke greenhouses. It was a beautiful structure, but unfortunately I can’t take credit for that one.

My dream one day is to build one of the old style wood heated Victorian greenhouses - and grow bananas in it. Should be quite a feat in wet and windy west Wales.

Ha. I know that weather. We’ve done work in Swansea and Aberporth before. Yeah, that would be good. Keep it looking rustic.

Does your company cover all of Wales as well?

Sort of. We’re based in Ross on wye, but we do a lot in Cardiff, and have done a few in west wales.

That Rectory man...So awesome. I can't believe home much retaining you had to do...Moving that earth and the retaining walls much have cost a fortune! How long from start to finish did the job take?

That phase was about 4 months at a guess. We’ve done a huge amount of work for this client over the years. I will post some more of the work we did at some other point. The client is actually an Aussie.

He must be a rich one. :)

They all are aren’t they? 😉👍

Hmm, I must have had a sickie the day they handed out riches here...Bummer.

Ha. I’ve got family and friends just outside Melbourne. I know how you lot live. Lol. But all joking aside mate, cheers for all the support you’ve given me lately. It’s very much appreciated. 👍

Ah ok, well the secrets out I guess...Keep in mind Melbourne is the big smoke...Little old Adelaide is just a town in comparison...😂

You're welcome for the support mate, we all need it at some stage and I still get incredible support from people who found me almost 3 years ago. I try to do my part and your posts are pretty good. 😉

What a fabulous garden! The construction was very beautiful. Congratulations, sincerely. I have several questions:
-Why did they work with stone and brick?
-Does plants tolerate extreme cold and heat? -
-What was the decision to choose the ornamental plants? Color of the flowers?
It was a great pleasure to read this post. Greetings @leighscotford

Thank you marcybetancourt. The reason we used stone and brick was to match the original cottage. The cottage was many hundreds of years old, so we had to get all of the plans and materials agreed by a preservation officer before we could start.

We didn’t have much of an input regarding the plants as the client was very knowledgeable, and knew exactly what she wanted, but yes, she chose very well as we never had many casualties, and the final product was very good.

Thanks for the interest and support.

Thank you for answering my question

No problem. Thank you for the interest.

Congratulations @leighscotford!
Your post was mentioned in the Steem Hit Parade in the following category:

  • Upvotes - Ranked 7 with 760 upvotes

Hi leighscotford,

This post has been upvoted by the Curie community curation project and associated vote trail as exceptional content (human curated and reviewed). Have a great day :)

Visit curiesteem.com or join the Curie Discord community to learn more.

Congratulations @leighscotford! You have completed the following achievement on the Steem blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You published more than 80 posts. Your next target is to reach 90 posts.

You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word STOP

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

You can upvote this notification to help all Steem users. Learn how here!