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| Surfaces around the garden. |
Of all the features in the garden the surfacing is the essential to get right. It is also an area of the garden that is worth spending that extra bit of cash on to ensure longevity. The quality and visual effects of materials, vary hugely when it comes to concrete, stone and wood. You will pay for quality but I recommend it as in the long run the cheaper materials always denigrate more quickly. Many smaller gardens can be surfaced entirely in hard materials, and this is an option you shouldn’t balk at.
The choice of paving or gravel is very important if you want to create a seamless connection between interior and exterior. Internal flooring materials should connect with the outside material in some way. It needn’t be an exact match, but the materials should either complement or contrast with each other. It also helps if the finishing levels of the outside and inside correspond.
Some people feel that a garden without a lawn loses a certain softness, but with the right choice of paving or gravel and clever planting, the lawnless garden can be as enticing as the lushest of grassy knolls. Far froma time when the only option were grey slabs or red slabs, there is a huge range of hard materials on the market now. The following selection should help in the choosing of your perfect underfoot experience.
Natural Stone
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You can’t really beat natural stone as a material in the garden. Stone tells the story of unimaginable ancient geological events and by including it in the garden, you borrow some of this history. The golden rule is to use stone that is local. In Ireland these would include granite, limestone, slate and the various types of sandstone. Stone from the locality just looks right, no arguments. A fine example of local stone in the landscape is the work of art that is Dun Laoghaire pier. The construction of the pier involved the hauling of thousands of tons of stone in carts from a quarry in Killiney Hill. To this day, parts of the Metals (the route from the quarry to the pier) are paved with granite flags from the quarry. This landscape makes sense, the tone and texture of the stone fitting in with the local plants and light levels.
If laying a stone surface, go easy on the concrete. It’s fine to lay a dry mix of concrete and sand underneath the slabs, but all you have to do to finish off is brush sand into the joins of the paving. This will allow the colonisation of little plants into the joints that will soften and naturalise the scene.
Stone can be incorporated into the garden as flags (large paving slabs), setts or cobbles. Setts, small roughly 150mm X 150mm blocks, are a versatile material, and can be laid in rows or curved into concentric circles or fan shapes. The cobbles seen in town or city streets were originally hand worked and like any hand finished objects had a certain character and personality that just can’t be produced by factory made goods. These salvaged cobbles are difficult to get your hands on but if you do find some, treasure them and treat them with the dignity they deserve.
The contrast of scale between slabs and setts can be used to great effect to ad detail and warmth to a paving scheme. A quarry usually offers stone that has been worked in some way, options include, flame textured, sand blasted, natural hewn, fair picked, fine picked, polished, rough axed and honed. Before you invest you should really see it and feel the stone. Take your shoes off and walk on it barefoot, and you’ll see that the sensuality of a stone paved area is well worth the expense.
Concrete paving products
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The market in recent years has been swamped with a huge range of concrete based paving slabs and paviours of various standards. Some of the ‘stone effect’ products have been quite good and about half the price of the real thing. You must keep in mind that the hues of the concrete slab can fade over time, and will not age as beautifully as the real stone.
These faux stone slabs come under such lyrical titles as bracken, turf, brindle, rustic red and country cobble. As a rule be careful with anything with a ruddy hue if your house is red brick. Paving and bricks of a slightly different shade of red can cause great offence to the eye. Slabs with a yellow tone can be quite warm, but can also look out of place in areas where limestone or granite are the local stone.
You can’t beat a simple and subtle warm grey slab. The paving should be the backdrop of the garden and fussily demand eye attention. And speaking of fussy don’t even think about laying ‘crazy paving’, or its more tarted up modern name ‘random stone’.
Concrete
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I wouldn’t underestimate the use of well laid, well finished concrete in the garden. Concrete can be coloured or textured by adding an aggregate mix. It can also be polished or finished in a number of ways. Definetly a cool and modern look, using concrete as concrete seems a much more honest approach than trying to make concrete look like something else, as with the concrete ‘stone’ paving slabs.
Cobblelock
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A small word on the cobblelock travesty. Maybe you would like your front garden to look like a petrol station forecourt, but if you don’t, avoid cobblelock. Cobblelock is made up of too many small elements. It provides a riotous assault to the eye and distracts from any effort you have put into the design of your house or garden Especially in rural situations, just don’t do it. Gravel will do just fine as a drive surface, just make sure to edge it properly.
Bonded Surfaces
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Bonded surfaces are much more common on the continent than in this country, yet can make a great surface within a garden. This surface is basically made up of a small shingle bonded with a opoxy resin. There can be problems in this country with high rainfall washing away some of the shingle, so make sure your contractor knows what they’re doing if laying this surface and includes appropriate drainage.
Psuedo surfaces
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A new choice is the use of concrete and texturing tools to create the appearance of natural minerals such as brick, cobblestone, slate, stone, tile and wood. These pretend surfaces can be surprisingly ok, especially if used in a slightly ironic way in a restricted urban setting. It’s more difficult to get away with faking it in a rural situation where a certain authenticity is demanded.
Gravel
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It is very important to get the colour of gravel right.If laying gravel in a large area t is better to use a subtle colour, grey or light cream tones. The stronger yellow or red toned gravels can overpower when used on a large scale. In smaller areas, of course, you can experiment with colour. Make sure to lay a secure blanket of a geotextile underneath the gravel to prevent it mixing with the soil.
Paths
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The curved or straight character of a path can be manipulated to great effect. A straight path will take the eye along its length to its end, and then draw the viewer to walk along its length to the end of the path. Place an important object at the end of a straight path, such as a sculptor, specimen plant or water feature.
A curved path, on the other hand will take the eye only as far as it can be seen before it bends, then as the path curves round, a new vista will be revealed. Views may be restricted at stages along the path and then suddenly unfold at a turn heightening the experience. In this way the path not only directs physical movements but also the senses.
I am reminding of the experience of turning a corner on the path around Howth Head, and being confronted with the wide expanse of Dublin Bay.Paths are also a eans through which you can link elements in a space, thus directing the movement of the eye around the garden.
Stepping stones
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Stepping stones can lead the eye to a particular spot as well as the feet. For this reason make sure you are content with what you are highlighting as a feature in the garden, it shouldn’t be the rotary washing line. Senno Rikyu, the great Japanese tea master is quoted as saying that “stepping stones should be 60% practical and 40% aesthetic”, so as well as being pleasing to the eye, they shouldn’t rock or wobble underfoot. Stepping stones may appear flat, but they should in fact be rounded rocks with one face flat and the rounded part sunk into the ground in order to ensure stability.
Where a stepping stone path meets a patio or deck, Japanese gardeners place a much larger stone called katsunugi-ishi, or ‘shoe-removing stone’ This adds visual stability. As a rule, stepping stones should be arranged in alternative patterns which correspond to the natural movement of feet.
Catwalk models may walk with one foot directly in front of the other, but mere mortals tend not to. In order to practically function as a path, stepping stones should be 3-4 inches apart aqnd for aesthetic considerations, the straight lines of stepping stones should be approximately parallel. Traditionally in Japan a special stone was used as the ‘garanseki’, or foundation stone, placed where paths divide and is a larger stone to act as a balancing element.
Boundary treatments
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The garden boundary defines your relationship with the outside world. In Holland, an open and fairly comfortable society, you’ll find there is no great urge to define the boundary of the front garden with walls or hedges. Here you’ll find that people want a wall and a hedge. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing.
We are a people that likes to define our property boundaries, lets admit it. The ultimate example of this is a rural house with the impenetrable 15 foot high leyandii hedge surrounding the house like a medieval city wall. Remember by constructing a high boundary, not only are you blocking views in, you are also blocking views out, which can lead to a certain claustrophobia.
Back gardens are different, and it is understandable to want a certain amount of privacy and solitude. Unfortunately, with the dwindling size of gardens, often times the boundary can overpower the garden itself. The Japanese garden masters made a rule of disguising the boundaries of gardens, and you could do worse than borrow their approach.
When the boundaries are disguised you don’t know where the garden ends, and therefore the space appears to be bigger than it actually is. This can be done in a number of ways with planting, and layout and use of boundary material, and a garden designer could help you out here.
Again, the main point is suitability. The boundary may be seen from outside the garden, so there is a certain responsibility involved in what you plant or erect. In rural situations, consider planting a native hedge, as you see the dividing fields all over the country. Plants to include are hawthorn, blackthorn, holly, hazel and ash, but check out what is locally dominant. This can be kept fairly neat or let grow tall, according to your requirements. Not only will you have a natural ‘always being there’ boundary, but you are much more likely to be woken by birdsong in the morning, as you are providing a favourite habitat for wildlife.
I am very much against the proliferation of suburban type hedging along rural roads in the countryside. Remember it is the removal of natural roadside hedges as well as the building of new houses that is contributing to the suburbanisation of the countryside.
If you need or want a fence as boundary, the options have opened up in recent years. Apart from the ubiquitous panel or picket fencing, you can choose from bamboo, willow, brushwood, or even stainless steel, aluminium, copper, whatever takes your fancy. In rural settings the simple rail and post fencing is the best option, or if possible go for a local stone wall.
Lighting
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Lighting is a wonderful thing to have in the garden, giving an added dimension and longer enjoyment hours of all your hard work. It is better to see the light and not the lights, with subtle and hidden light fittings that create glows rather than stand alone light features. You will find up lights, down lights, flood lights, wall lights, step lights, funky fairy lights, and pond lights. Make sure what you highlight is something you actually want to see.
Candles can also look stunning in a garden and should be used all the time. In lighting the garden make sure to retain some spooky and shady places, the garden should retain a certain mystery and no show all of its pleasure at once.
Some of the better lighting firms will draw up a lighting plan for you and in a larger space this is well worth the extra fee. It is imperative to employ an electrician (or very competent handyperson) if installing garden lights. All fixtures should be waterproof, and underground wiring protected from unsuspecting spade users.
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The above article is courtesy of House and Home, Ireland's favourite interiors magazine which also publishes 'Build Your Own House and Home', the annual 300 page reference to building a home in Ireland.
www.houseandhome.ie
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