Alan tells us how important our gardens have become to us, they bring family and friends together, are good for our Mental and Physical Health as well as connecting us to Nature.
Lots of us have challenging gardens which we would like to become our dream garden, they are often, in fact, a disaster zone.
So this year Alan and his team David Domoney, Katie Rushworth, Frances Tophill and Danny Clarke are going to surprise some inspirational people whose gardens are some of the worst they have ever tackled.
They will also share the secrets of how they do this, giving us good ideas to transform the chosen garden as well as in our own gardens.
'Welcome to Love Your Garden'.
Alan says we love colour in our gardens as they make you feel happy or calm you, so if you have a lot of colour in your garden, it can become the perfect haven for you.
Alan is in Leicester to have a sneaky look at Julie Richards garden before surprising her with a kaleidoscope of colour garden.
Julie runs a local Community Garden Project Green Gym and Alan goes there in an Ice Cream Van to surprise her and a shocked Julie asks Alan for a '99 please'.
Friend Judy Protor says Julie given her confidence and new skills since she been coming to the garden and she is well appreciated.
Jules actually runs 2 Community Projects for people with Mental as well as Physical problems.
David Sansom, Green Gym, Volunteer tells his story how 5 years ago the mother of his son sadly passed away and he found himself housebound in his new role as main care giver and was nervous to first attend Green Gym.
Jules put him at ease, chatting to him and has an infectious laugh and spends all her time helping others selflessly.
Julie says she like making people smile and making them happy its amazing to change their mood, you can't beat that feeling.
She has helped 100s of people through gardening projects and now her friends have asked Love Your Garden to do a garden just for her.
Kieron Maher, the site Manager says it's about time something nice was done for Jules after all she does to show her just how appreciated she is.
The Garden
The garden is a jungle to get into and it has got overgrown and got very boring.
Alan asks Julie if she likes her garden and how it looks and she says she not had time as busy doing the Community Projects garden so its got out of hand.
He asks here what feel she wants and she says 'Liming in Barbados' and her family was from there so she spent a lot of time over there.
Liming meaning chill out and socialise there, cook outside and be surrounded with nice things to look at.
Alan says these gardens are very colourful and she agrees and loves that style of bright vibrant colours everywhere.
Jules gets emotional as Alan says him and his fiends are going to come and give her the garden of her colourful dreams for liming in.
Design Concepts
Alan goes to visit a garden that has perfectly got the bright colours he is after that all work together to give a vibrant feel like the Caribbean look he is after.
The garden is full of orange, purple and red vibrant flowers and it is known that different colours bring different effects on us.
Red and yellow make you hungry apparently hmmm McDonalds!!
When you put different plants together you can see how they effect you and your mood and they have put a deep Crimson Astrantia with a pale pink Abelia which is a gentle blend.
For more vibrant the Orange Crocosmia and the opposite on the colour spectrum the blue of a Geranium give a bright mix.
To make colours pop they have used Evergreens as a darker background as colour can come not just from flowers but foliage, berries, leaves and stems.
Pittosporum has cream and green leaves with chocolate coloured stems, Physocarpus have a deep plum coloured stem and with flowers next to them it adds lots of interest.
Hard landscaping can also add to a garden's colour scheme and this garden has dark purple screens and wall as well as Corten Steel planters.
The garden is very colourful and Alan plans to use some of it techniques in his garden scheme.
Alan starts his garden plan for Jules Barbados feel garden and he going to use 3 separate areas in it.
David will do the bottom of the garden which will be the entertaining area, a beach bar with seating
Danny will do the centre of the garden an area with lush planting with lots of colour.
Alan will do the area by the house and he will do a relaxing, zen area and the side alley with shelved planting.
All 3 areas will need to flow well together to make a warm welcoming haven for Jules.
A Work in Progress
The Contactors arrive to start work on the garden as well as Alan's Trusty Team of Danny Clarke and David Domoney.
The garden is very overgrown so they remove all the trees except 1 Plum tree and dig up all the concrete.
Danny is starting on the middle section and a wooden subframe is already constructed and the deck in the middle around the Plum tree.
To divide the garden into the 3 sections he is using sleepers placed vertically to act as a screen and these will be painted vibrant colours.
Danny has some sample colours to see what goes and makes him think of the Caribbean.
He is using the proper wood paint which means it takes just the 1 coat and for a 2.5 litre can it costs £40 and the sleepers are about £25 each.
Danny has now started painting the fence a very sunshine yellow and deep purple in the zen area
Danny has started planting his area in familiar colours for Julie to take her back to her roots, this hot border is planted in the full sun full of fiery toned plants.
The colour he is using are pinks, yellow and blues that are all vibrant with plants like Echinacea which is part of the daisy family and also Red-Hot Poker and he planting this amongst the grasses with similar leaves.
The background of neutral colours really makes the flowers stand out and he has used lots of green grasses to make it look stunning.
David is out the front starting work on the Garden Bar which is going to be a Rum Shack but it needs some bright Caribbean colours to make it a focal point.
They bought the converted shed for £800 and although expensive it does make you think of the Caribbean as he adds the last strip of roofing felt.
The felt will mean the bar stays dry and weatherproof and also make it last longer.
David then finishes off the ends of the felt
Alan goes to see what David been doing and he serves him up some paint colours from behind the bar, Flamingo Pink, or Tropical Teal, he can choose.
Alan worries with the yellow and purple the colours will be to much, well he wanted bright!
David knows where the Rum shack is going behind him so he doing the relaxation area in front of it.
He is laying Porcelain Paving which costs £50 a square metre so the area costs approximately £300.
Concrete pavers a lot cheaper but they do not reflect the light like the Porcelain ones and they have been laid with a big gap between them which he is filling with medium sized Cotswold Stones.
David along with some helpers from the Community Garden are painting the bar in bright colours and the inside is going to be Flaming Pink!
David for his planting in the entertainment area is using plants for their leaves, fruit or coloured stems like the Cornus Westonbirt with bright red branches when they have lost there leaves and needs pruning in early Spring.
The next plant he is using is Nandina Domestica also know as Sacred Bamboo and has green foliage during the Summer, then red stems and berries.
Then it is some Euphorbias called Ascot Rainbow as well as a Honey Scented Spurge with its tropical foliage.
The Rum Shack now has to be manoeuvred into the garden and it is a tight squeeze with Alan directing them.
Alan is getting his first look at the side alley which has now been paved with pale grey Pavers and round the corner ion the decking is his zen area.
Alan turn for some paint colours for the side alleyway and he has chosen as well a bright containers for herbs and vegetables.
The containers will go well against the yellow fence and they are just cheap terracotta pots which he masking taped the top of and painted them around the top.
The rims are bright red and some bright yellow and the first plant to be planted is a Pepper plant called Capsicum which are a sweet pepper not hot.
It already has 12 peppers on it some red and some green so its preference when you pick them.
In the other pots he is planting herbs in various shades of green starting with Rosemary that stays small when potted and by taking the tips out it will stay bushy.
It is also evergreen so will look nice all year he is also adding some bulbs to the pot and starts with Crocuses which he plants 3 inches apart and deep.
To the entrance of the garden he is also adding an archway and to climb over this he is planting Campsis a flowering climber.
Alan has all his pots in place and the entrance to the garden is complete.
The Plum tree is the only thing remaining from Jules old garden and Alan is pruning it to stop it being so dominate so he is going to lift the crown.
To do this you need to remove all the lower branches so you can get by it and leaves the trunk exposed and all the foliage at the top of the tree.
Plum Trees should be done in the Summer to stop diseases getting in to the exposed trunk and you undercut a branch first so it does not tear you can also remove the bulk of the branch first.
When cutting large branches off a tree you need to leave a knuckle it heals over quickly.
Alan removes the smaller branches with Jennifer Loppers (his joke!) and also any diseased or damaged branches.
Alan now starts his hot planting scheme and he thinking about the full sun and the bright red Heleniums love the sun but look dull at dusk but the yellow colours like Red-Hot Poker are more visible in low light.
The garden is in the sun for most of the day
Alan is starting work on his second project the private Zen Garden to chill out in and he starts with using the vertical sleepers like Danny did to screen off the area.
They are then going to be cut at different heights so it is semi-translucent so you can see between them and will be painted soft Lilac.
The sleepers need to be concreted in but you could also use fence posts or wooden stakes hammered into the ground.
Alan now adding the plants and he using the same hot colours as Danny with lots of greens and fiery colours and even amongst the green there can be fiery bits like the Petioles on the Photinia are red as well as the bark of the Viburnum.
He is adding some Heleniums which will flower in the late Summer and Autumn and a good tip is to go to your Garden Centre and buy something that is in flower every month you will end up with all year round colour.
Next are the plants with different flower forms and Autumn is good for Daisy flowers like Michaelmas, Echinacea, Helenium or Rudbeckias then there is the star shaped Crocosmia and then they need placing by a background that shows them off to their best.
In the chill out zone the colour palate becomes more calming and on the Zen terrace he had planted a Passion Flower, Japanese Anemones and Pink Astrantias to make a floral screen against the timber screen.
For a centre piece Alan is using a Corten Steel rusted planter and he filling it with Orange Begonia Sutherlandii and has small leaves and flowers and flowers throughout the year.
Take some cuttings in late Summer and over Winter it somewhere frost free or it may survive the Winter in a warmer climate.
Alan is now adding a Carex a type of Rush Grass which has a orange stripe on the leaves then he adds some bright Orange Chilli Pepper plants.
The Zen Garden is now complete with planters and seats added.
Alan says a lot of people mentally thinks the garden is over for the year come the Autumn and then there is nothing until the Spring when the bulbs start coming up.
This is a waste of a season when you can make colour last plants like Fatsia Spider's Web that can live outside all year with it speckled and Marbled leaves.
Holly is a very hardy plant they are slow growers but can get quite big, but can be clipped into shape, Choisya Sundance.
Mexican Orange Blossom has wonderful acidic looking foliage with lovely scented flowers in May. Libertia Grandflora looks the same all year and is a glorious plant for a sheltered spot.
With the final Caribbean touches the garden is complete.
The Grand Reveal
Julie open your eyes
*Gasps* 'Oh my' 'This ain't my house' 'It's beautiful, oh my gosh' 'oh! oh! oh!' 'That is absolutely wicked' 'That's what I wanted some light in my life' 'That is absolutely.... It's me... I can't' 'I couldn't even have imagined this'.
Alan takes her for a tour of the new garden as she goes from laughter to tears and she finds her liming spot.
The garden full of light and colour, a sun-soaked paradise
Sunny welcoming entrance
Entertainment area
Rum Shack
Private Zen Garden
Julie says it will now be a pleasure to come home to this, Jules dries her eyes as family and friends flock into the garden.
The corks pop and drinks in hand the first party in the new garden begins
Frances Tophill is tackling a difficult shady corner of a garden.
The Garden
There is an old Apple Tree that is causing the shade which cannot be moved but Frances has some good ideas for the Garden to become bright and colourful.
Her plan is to turn this neglected patch of garden into a bright modern eating area.
A Work in Progress
Frances is starting by painting the fence and the colour she has chosen is a pale shade of blue to draw you in and painting a fence also prolongs its life.
Next job is to move some large rocks into the garden which is not any easy job in the mud but she gets them into position.
Natural surfaces reflect light and add interest so the rocks will do this and can either be upright or laying down depending on the effect you are after.
Frances starts the planting with the Structure plants and she has chosen Hydrangeas called Paniculata because they have panicles of flowers.
One of the varieties are Limelight which is the taller one and the other is Little Lime and they are both shade tolerant plants.
Plants that like shade are usually pale coloured with pale flowers so pollinators can see them in dark areas and she has some Astrantias as an example.
The seating area will have a curved border around it between the 2 existing trees which also causes a problem for plants not only by shading them but by taking all the moisture.
A good plant for a shady dry area tats also very tough is Pachysandra Terminalis which has little white flowers and is for ground cover.
To the seating area it is covered with weed membrane than white gravel is added on top.
The focal point of the area is a spectacular etched Aluminium sculpture costing over £300 on top of a white painted post.
Behind the statue she is putting 6mm thick coloured Perspex sheet fixed to the fence.
The Grand Reveal
It has taken just 1 day to change this dark corner of the garden costing approximately £1000.
All photographs are copyright of ITV.com
Links
Landscape Team
Jason Williams
No comments:
Post a Comment