In my part of the world, although not known for the great weather, ‘gardening’ is big bussines. Everybody wants to enjoy their garden whenever possible. Due to limited amount of space available the gardens in Holland tend to be paved for the most part as they are seen as an extension of the living room and treated similar.
Even owners of smaller outdoor spaces, under 500 square feet, (ca.15 by 30 feet) have a lot of garden wishes. The latter years it has become absolutely necessary to have a big corner sofa for relaxing / lounging and also a seperate dining area complete with an outdoor kitchen / BBQ. These wishes, driven by what they see in the media, tend to not quite fit in these small spaces. Which forces the garden owner to make choices. Sadly the wrong choices are made more often than the right ones. On more than one occasion a client told me they initialy we’re planning to pave the whole back yard with black 24 inch tiles, place some plant containers and call it a garden. Luckily they came to their senses and called me to help with the design and styling of the garden.
It’s not that i’m against the Outdoor Living Trend per se, because I believe it’s a natural evolution of the gardens getting smaller, but the way it’s interpreted in the average garden is an eyesore. My personal preference leans towards a more balanced garden with enough functional space, a perfect mixture of hard and soft land scaping, Outdoor Living without paving paradise. Luckily there are a lot of professional and amateur gardeners who try to educate the masses about sustaintainable and eco-friendly gardening and try to promote vegetable and fruit plots, which are all the rage at the moment. Although I admire and praise the effort I believe it’s going to be hard to get the masses to give up their small, paved paradises.
Thefore I tend to focus more on the materials used.
In stead of hardwood maybe consider Wood-Polymer composit decking material, which is made from almost 100% recycled material.
Or maybe consider a green fence as an option and use energy efficient lighting, all little things the help the enviroment with minimal effort. Another thing that you could and should look at as a amateur or professional gardener is rain water. The re-use of water should be priority number 1. It’s so easy to collect, hold and release rainwater everbody should do it.
Trying to help one garden at a time.
Hippetuinen Gardendesign and Styling
