A flood story

The new garden looking fabulous

Last year I designed a riverside garden for my clients Keith & Kirsty. They wanted a stylish garden to tie in with their stylish house. The existing garden was pretty boring & most impractical too.

As you can see, it didn’t really fit with the smart house & the tall step into the house from the deck was dreadful. I redesigned it with practical steps, two large hardwood decks which would both be useful but also reduce the impact of the height difference. We knew there would be flood problems so we had to consider this when designing it. This is how it turned out which we’ve all been delighted with. Now we’ve been subjected to all this rain & flooding I emailed Kirsty to see how they were doing today. She sent me this – Wow!! They are bravely battling on & are not flooded inside thankfully. They can get in & out with waders on & are just thankful they are safe & dry inside. The garden should be OK as it’s not been underwater for more than a week although I suspect the verbenas will need replacing. She then sent me this – I meant to say Jo, the decking is a god send in the flood – though not it’s primary purpose or inspiration! It gives us room to get waders off in relative comfort and saves us walking water and mud through the house – a big and very welcome change from last year when we had to walk over grass churned to mud then negotiate the old deck and huge step! It’s the job of a garden designer to be practical as well as pretty so this was great to hear. I am however thinking of all the poor souls out there who are having such a dreadful time & really hoping for a small drought. Bye for now