6. Squiggle

A high and low tech week. We start with Tamsin’s SketchUp class and I learn a few wizzy 3D modelling tricks. At the other end of the spectrum, Jo teaches us 1-point perspective the manual way. This makes your brain hurt a bit. Fortunately, 2-point perspective is cancelled and we instead focus on developing our perspective drawing style. Mine turns out to be ‘quirky’ and involves lots of doodling and squiggles. This will either be loved or hated by clients/Duncan.

I buy lots of books and subscribe to 3 garden magazines. In one I find photos of the Calmeyn Garden by Piet Blanckaert in Belgium, which is planted up with only 8 types of plant. It looks super cool and I’m definitely loving the less-is-more style.

Read Full Post »

5. Wall

We’re shown a cheat’s guide to planting, which involves drawing groups of different sized circles on a plan and making them look balanced and interesting before even thinking what plants they should be.

Our plants teacher, Chris, takes us to her nursery at Orchard Dene for a crash course in buying and planting. We admire the autumn grasses and see collections of plants set aside for top designers. I like her emphasis on inspiration from nature and simplicity.

Back up to Scotland on the weekend for a bit of light walling at my parent’s new house. We are pushing to meet our end of November inspection deadline but are battling the elements. Rain makes mortar soggy. Frost makes mortar crumble to a fine dust.

Read Full Post »

4. Compost

I visit Waterperry Gardens on the weekend. It is a hot, sunny autumn day and I get spectacularly lost in the mile between the bus stop and the entrance gate. After an hour and a half of walking east, west, and south, I give up and buy a map at the not-so-nearest motorway service station. I go north through the track disguised as someone’s driveway.

Half of the class is also at Waterperry, taking photos for the seasonal plant portfolios we have to turn in at the end of the course. I realise I’m taking far too many pictures of dead and dying plants, as I like the artiness of them, though I don’t know if my clients would appreciate a compost bin planting scheme. To compensate, the next day I visit Oxford Botanic Garden and take pictures of every single plant that looks vaguely alive.

We have our first class ‘Crit’. No tears but lots of beautifully executed drawings scribbled over with the teacher’s marker pens. Mine has the dubious distinction of having black and red marker scribbles. Individually drawn bricks are added to the forbidden list.

Read Full Post »

3. Shrubbery

We are allowed to design a real garden. The victim lives just around the corner from me and we turn up en masse for the initial site survey. There is much huffing and near-strangulation with tape measures and disappearances into the shrubbery. We retire to the pub after an hour and a half.

The next day we discover that some of our measurements are way off. By consensus we finally come up with a survey that looks sort of right but our confidence is shaken. Duncan suggests we measure up our own garden this weekend for a bit more experience.

The work is piling up and I need to get things under control this week now that I’m more settled. There’s this blog and photos to post on flickr and our forum and skype groups and history timelines and seasonal plant photos and lecture notes to write up and then there’s homework. The important thing is not to panic.

Read Full Post »

2. Windfall

The week is off to a grand start with a visit to Blenheim Palace and then Rousham. Blenheim has excellent carrot cake and fun tours by Karen, the Head of Education. But although Blenheim is grand, it’s unlovable. Too much sordid history. Too much digging up a perfectly good garden and re-designing it at great expense every time one of the Dukes marries a wealthy heiress. Makes me sad to think that my designs are going to be dug up one day because someone thinks they’re pure mince.

Perhaps Rousham gels better because it was designed by just one person, William Kent. And I guess this course will help us understand why Rousham ‘feels’ so much better than Blenheim. Probably something to do with building/site cohesion and direction of flow and proportion and things that aren’t quite instinctive to me yet.

The apples are ripe on the trees and there’s a box in Rousham’s car park with windfalls. You can wander the gardens and munch away while trying not to fall down the ha ha.

Monty Don thinks Rousham is “one of the greatest experiences on this earth“.

Read Full Post »