RTE Super Garden
A Moroccan design brief, 7 days to design and source, a 3 week build period, over 20 ton of materials and over 500 plants.....
Sitting here you really do get taken away with the view. Sunshine from 11am to sunset. The old doors and imperfect brickwork of the shed with the sprawling array of flowers and the sound of water flowing in the back round. The Pergola looks out to the rear of the garden where an old reclaimed well worn small bench is flanked by two Terracotta pots planted with palms. A liquid Amber Pom Pom fills the rear corner with bird bath and feeder in the foreground.
A low level oak table we made is just the perfect height for putting the feet up and admiring the 2m high side fence. The five inch fence panels are erected at 45deg. to each other.
One panel painted black the other charred slightly to enhance the grain giving two very different views from each end of the garden. This view here giving the best of both worlds.
A Fargesia bamboo frames the right of the photo while a minature apple and Elaeagnus Quicksilver
We used an old Whiskey barrel and some reclaimed guttering to harvest the rainwater from the roof of the Pergola. The barrel drains into a reservoir underneath which is lined with a pond liner and overflows then to a soak pit.
This allows the planting of various aquatic plants into the garden enhancing the biodiversity value of the space and provides a more safe option for children than having an open pond.
To the left of the barrell is a Sambucus Nigra, black Elderberry. The fruits are edible if cooked and commonly used to make a cordial drink. A Musa Bajoo, the hardy Banana is to the right and brings some dramatic foliage to the garden enhancing the feel of the space.
To encourage more wildlife to the space a birdbath and feeding station were added, The bath itself is the bottom of a copper hot water cylinder and it rests on an antique chimney pot.
The view here looking back towards the house shows the charred fencing on the left and the blue and yellow of the house. The large topiary disc shaped small leaf privet to the right rear of the photo was rescued from a skip. It was originally a ball shape which had succumbed to poor care and attention and over a period of about 6 years was cared for and trained to a large disc shape.
