Award winning garden designer Ciarán Kirwan shares his expert advice for creating your very own dream garden. For more information on Ciarán's work visit Meadow.ie
What most people don't know:
When it comes to your garden the best thing to do is to spend money on quality plants, a mixture of mature and semi-mature. People tend to buy the smallest plants because they cost less, and then they struggle to grow. Sometimes they also place their plants incorrectly, which means that plants may struggle to grow, as the soil in that area of the garden may not be suitable. People are unaware of the importance of aspect; most people have a tendency to put their deck directly outside the back door, but the sun is outside the only door when they’re in work, and they come home to a deck that is in shade. You need to work out the optimum time for sunshine when putting in any kind of decking or patio in your back garden, to know where best to place it so that you can enjoy it while the sun is shining.
Colours, shapes and space:
When helping a customer make over a garden I come in and give a consultation on how best to alter what is already there. I like to employ a lot of colour in the garden. A simple thing to do is to plaster the garden wall and then paint it in any colour that works with the colours in the garden. If a garden is very long putting in vertical blocks of colour will shorten it, while horizontal blocks of colour on a wall will lengthen a short garden, as this draws the eye. I also like to use PVC mirror; it adds space if put in subtly, cut in different shapes or put on a wall. If it is placed behind at the base of a planter it appears to double the depth of planting.
Indoors, outdoors:
Most garden designers I know don’t actually have a garden! The best thing that I have done in my own home is to knock down walls inside to create more space. As a consequence of doing their gardens, a lot of my customers ask me for suggestions for their interiors, as the inside of the house is a reflection of the exterior and it’s a continuation of the process. The two can’t be totally incongrouous.
Final tips:
The one thing I recommend is to have the lawn replaced, getting it taken up and installing a whole new one, as this frames the garden. I would get a consultation from a professional to get suggestions and see what the options are - you can get people to clean up or even theme your garden for a particular occasion.
The cost of the service really varies. The consultation and design fee are the same and from there we provide a complete design and build, or project management service. It all depends on the scale of the garden, the choice of materials, how expensive the items are and what is finally.
