All Change in the New Year or any other time for that matter

Of course gardens can very often design themselves but sometimes they need a little help

Whether you are re-planting the shrubbery, extending your living space outside or totally re-landscaping, I can help you design, build and plant your garden.

I always keep in mind that it is your garden so it is important for it to reflect you and what you want from your garden.

Garden Art - landscape as a canvas

How garden design and landscaping relates to the process of painting

While attending Pershore College I had the opportunity of reading the dissitations of past students. One entitled 'Influences of othere artistic disciplines on landscape design' by Emma Todd dated 20 October 2000 started me thinking about the way the landscape related to painting, in particular the notion that art brings the sublte lines and curves that we find so uplifting in the countryside and natural landscape around us.

There was a particular phrase in the dissitation which suggested that there were many lanscapers who did not engage particularly in the creative process (I hate the phrase but it fits the bill) in the same way that an artist or sculpture might. I wondered, as an artist how I could take this idea and observe how I would approach this, it gave me a whole different meaning to the phrase 'landscape painting'.

Since then I have been doing some gardening and in the process designed gardens, not formally but by suggestion to the client. I realised that this is very similar to the way that I approach painting except that instead of discussing the ideas with the client I discuss them with myself.

There is a very tangible similarity to the way that it all works out. I had been lead to believe that garden design was similar to architecture in that you have a design marked out on paper with all the possible main design decisions made before a spade is lifted or a plant planted. Having observed the way that I have shaped gardens in a similar way that I paint I can see a marked difference in techniques. My plan is generally a sketch of what exists at the time of starting and where it is in relation to other things, which helps me to become acqainted with the way the land lies and then I start to make my next move rather than design the whole thing. This method also means that the client comes along with you for the ride or perhaps the other way round, either way, it doesn't matter.

In painting this is a normal process as a mark is made and then perhaps another and then it is evaluated as to what it has done to the space and its relationship with spaces around it and itself. The next move is then dictated by all the previous ones. In this way the whole thing can change or be changed on the addition of one particular item even items that have previously worked when they were implementd can be removed if they do not work and put back in when they do if needs be. To quote Ron Hull 'you are what you do next'.

There is a point as there is in painting and sculpture when the thing becomes what it is, its seems to aqcuire an identity and life of its own. This, I have noticed, is when it becomes part of the flow of the landscape (if landscape here is seen as its surroudings which can apply to anythin), it has become part of the stream and has harmony with what it is and where is is. This process goes on in artistic endeavours because there is a creation and then for that to be right in its place it has to refer back correctly to itself and its surrounds and as long as it does so at every change that occurs it remains in the flow and contines to be what it is. When physical matter is produced either the growth of a plant or the growth of an animal the refering back to what it is, is already done by the growing process, its only when we use thought to change things that we have to manually have a referal process. Some people may do this automatically and some have to find a way of doing it.

Feet and Inches

An interesting thing I have found while designing is the way that the proportions change when using imperial measurements and now very often I use feet and inches, poles and chains, perches and roods.