Friday, 5 August 2011 at 01:10

http://www.ideas4landscaping.com/forum, http://www.ideas4landscaping.com/support.htm, http://www.ideas4landscaping.comOur garden design business has a distinctly different model than most others in that a decade ago we decided we wanted to travel a little, see the world and when we got there, design some gardens. Witness the Hotmail ads for Microsoft where relaxing is the new fast living. It's actually nothing new because it's what we used to be like before the Thatcher years of the 80s. When you look across Europe you realise that in many countries nothing's changed. In the Mediterranean states such as Cyprus, Greece and Italy there's been no great trend towards fast gardens but there has been a growth in wealth. Our clients may be spending fortunes on great gardens but they are still connected to nature. Kitchen gardens have always been a norm here whilst in the UK the idea of growing your own food has skipped a generation and it's the over 60s and the under 30s that are leading the move back to gardens that include food production rather than gardens solely for entertainment. This concept of our gardens as a focus of health and home reveals itself in fledging schemes across the UK, France and Germany encouraging front garden farming and the message that you can grow your own even on the tiniest balconies is widely documented.

These trends have also revealed themselves in show gardens and although designers are still producing gardens that are dramatic and striking there is a move towards more calming lines and a profusion of relaxed planting that translates into our own gardens. In Sweden, for example, there has been an upsurge in gardening and a move towards enclosing spaces that were once open to the neighbours but here plants predominate and our Swedish colleagues indicate the influence of the celebrity designer creating a soft planted look that everyone wants to follow. This will undoubtedly continue as we escape to our gardens and the outwardly hard landscape increasingly gives way to soft landscaping.

The environmental imperative is now the greatest influence on commercial and public landscape design. The trend back to plants in our gardens is following a move in larger landscapes away from vast areas of lawn grass towards a more conscious planting of meadows, whether led by a purely native species approach or planting design that includes ornamentals to achieve a new look to our landscapes.

For these large landscapes low maintenance requirements have been as necessary as environmental concern but the latter has focussed the minds, and budgets, on creating planting schemes that create diverse habitats for everyone, including wildlife to enjoy. But, with the right company you can find one that works for you within your budget and time slot.

Home owners who try doing it themselves can do it on their own, if they're willing to put in the time and labor themselves but the results will surely be noticeably different than having it done by a professional company.

There are many landscaping and garden magazines and books on the market and if you want to show your landscapers ideas that you have they can take that all into consideration when mapping it out in their blueprints. You can avail yourself of your local library or search online.

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