The inspiration
The theme for the garden is inspired by the
title of the awareness campaign run by Alzheimer’s Society entitled ‘Remember
to Reflect.’
Designed as a space for quiet reflection; somewhere
to reminisce and seek inspiration and pleasure in the simple joys of nature. Carers
of people with dementia like to carry on doing things together as a couple for
as long as possible as the illness progresses; this garden gives an ideal
social activity that can be enjoyed together.
A design emerges
So I have the inspiration, but what will the
garden actually look like? To start things off I draw a square 9x9m in size (to
scale, not full size, of course!) and break down the resulting ‘garden’ into
one metre squares to form a grid. I designed a garden last year for a client
that was a series of overlapping squares and by applying this technique the
geometry of the garden slowly emerges.
‘The overlapping squares divide the space
into three distinct areas of paving, water and planting'
The seating area is the largest ‘square’ of
paving, around which an L-shaped raised bed will be built. Its often hard to
successfully photograph a show garden as there are lots of distractions in the
background. I’ve tried to reduce this problem by building up the raised bed at
the back into full height walls to screen and frame the garden.
To get to the seating area you cross
over the reflective pool via a series of large stepping stones. And finally, the resulting voids between
paving and water become the spaces for the third and most important element of
the garden; the planting. Planted at waist height in the raised bed, the plants
will create a sense of enclosure around the seating area, then at ground level
to all other sides. Views into the garden will be through and over the
planting.
‘Overall the garden is split
approximately one third planting, one third water and one third paving.’
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