EMBRACE THE OUTDOORS
No matter what size your outdoor space — a balcony or an acre — now is the perfect time to refresh. Nathalie Marquez Courtney learns how to look at her own backyard anew
‘People think gardens are about plants. They’re about people’
NEVER has anyone with a garden been more grateful for it. We moved into our house just before Christmas, so our back yard is a scruffy patch of grass, currently teeming with dandelions and daisies, but I couldn’t love it more. Even before the coronavirus restrictions kicked in, there had been the first stirrings of a reconnection with the earth. It is perhaps a hopeful sign that, during these times of crisis, so many more of us rushed to our gardens — one online Irish seed seller reported a 400pc increase in orders.
“What my garden is currently giving me is peace, calm, grounding and hope,” says garden and landscape designer Bernard Hickie (bernardhickie.com). “Simplicity and connection is something we miss at the deepest level of our being. Given everything that is going on, the emphasis for garden design should be on how gardens are there to remind us that we are part of nature, so we should use the space — no matter its size — to its absolute potential. To energise us, to calm us, to heal us and even to feed us.”
Some garden centres started tentatively trading again this week, though social distancing restrictions might mean a long wait to get into yours. If, like me, you don’t have much more than a scraggly patch of land and some potted plants, it is worth taking the time to consider the design of the space before dusting off the spade.
GRAND GARDEN DESIGNS
There is truth in the old chestnut that the garden is the home’s ‘fifth room’, but creating an easy transition between indoors and out can seem daunting. “The outside is no different to the inside in terms of the process you go through,” says Bernard. “There are a different set of rules, as you’re dealing with living material. But there are a series of fundamental questions you have to ask, and so much of it is common sense.”
Just as with interior design, function comes first. What do you want to use the space for? Things high on the list usually include eating and relaxing, barbecuing, somewhere for kids to play and explore, perhaps somewhere to grow some edibles. Use tools like Pinterest to pull together a mood board of how you want the space to feel. Starting with thinking through who will be using the space and how, as well as the general vibe you want to create, is much more important than deciding what to grow.
“People think gardens are about plants. They’re not. They’re about people,” says garden designer Anne Byrne( anne byrne garden design. com), whose designs appeared on RTE’s Super Gardens. “There’s a misconception that you have to be into gardening to enjoy a garden and you absolutely don’t. Gardens are for everybody, not just gardeners.
“So even if you don’t know one end of a plant from the other, even if you don’t want any plants at all, you can still enjoy it — it’s about extending your home out and making it better.”
Like an interior designer, a garden designer works to get to know how you like to spend your time, but also assesses the site, and how to best make it suit your needs — from making plans for privacy-boosting plantings to recommending what to grow based on how the elements affect your space. You can even go so far as to future proof your garden, designing it in such a way that it will grow and change as your family does, perhaps planting a ‘pizza garden’ to get the kids involved in growing (by planting things like basil, thyme and oregano in a container, or growing tomatoes, for example), or designing the space in a way that is low maintenance now, but gives you the potential to get your hands dirty down the line.
And like their interior counterparts, garden designers have adapted to social distancing recommendations, with many now offering video consultations and contact-less site visits. These consultations usually result in a mood board and a master plan, to scale, which a contractor can follow or you can use to build your garden yourself.
ALL SHAPES AND SIZES
Designing a garden may seem like something only those with acres of land can think about, but the truth is that the smaller the space, the more important it is to make every square metre work. “This is especially important when it’s a family home and everybody might want different things from the garden,” says Anne. “If you have a housing estate with 100 houses in it, you could have 100 different gardens because everybody living there is going to want something different from their space. It has to work for you, for your family, and for your site.”
These practical considerations make the planning much easier. If you’ve only got a balcony or small patio to work with, for example, you could begin by adding bamboo screens for privacy, planting hardy, wind-resistant foliage and grasses and being clever with balcony-friendly self-watering containers for growing things like herbs. “It’s all about creating space to bring in a little bit of nature where we can,” says Bernard.
Perhaps the most important thing is to plan for a space you actually want to spend time in, which makes it as easy as possible for you to connect with nature. “Gardens are massively important to people’s mental health,” continues Bernard. “Never more so than now — people need to be able to do things, to be creative. There can be a lot of noise in our heads, but there can also be a tremendous calm if you are able to slow down enough to let nature in.”