This month we are beginning the transformation of our garden, to create a modern outdoor space to allow us to film, train and teach. As part of our lifestyle blog, we are going to share the journey with you and hope it will be interesting and inspiring for you.
The wonderful oak stump carving we commissioned from artist Ric Gibson of Stump Art in Bolton, will become more of a focal point for the garden. The Oak tree was cut down by the previous owner and when we viewed the house, we both kept seeing the face of a Green Man looking back at us. We wanted a smiley face for the carving, so the neighbours' children would not be scared and called him Oaky Doke - he dreams away bad dreams into the earth.
We are not keen gardeners, so the rather mimsy and fussy planting is not something we like or have time to maintain. The garden needs new fencing and re-structing, as the soil has eroded in the bottom left corner, near the stump.
There are also three levels with very small paved areas and narrow paths. It's all rather hazardous as most of the paving is uneven and broken. This is unsuitable for our training and impossible for us to even consider teaching others.
Seb Wilcock Landscape Gardening from Trawden, is going to help us create our vision for our own Lighthouse garden. The principle idea is to create two rooms - a serene and welcoming room at the bottom half of the garden and a kitchen garden nearer the house and summer house - this area will probably be changed again in the future as we hope to have a kitchen extension.
New fencing, painted green, will be put down the left side of the area and across the back, there will be a horizontally slatted fence, to be painted red. We would like to be able to hang decorations on here and position a mirrored gate behind the stump, to create a sense of more space and reflect the evening light back into the garden.
A raised and covered decking area with electrics, will be constructed at the bottom of the garden, aligned to the right with a balustrade near the oak stump. This will give us an undercover area for teaching and entertaining. There will be a large porcelain paved patio, subtly chequered grey and beige, with a gravel edge. This will provide a hard wearing and suitable area for our training and teaching.
The gravel will be extended around the tree stump, with lighting and we hope to source a large steel bowl to create a fountain in front of our Green Man. This will provide a reflection of him and fit in with the other oriental touches we wish to add.
In front of the summer house will be gravelled and there will be pots and raised beds used to grow herbs and vegetables. Maybe a greenhouse at some point will be useful too.
So we have some big plans, but hopefully the design is sympathetic to the 1930s era of the house and certainly it will be useful for our growing business for teaching in person and filming online content.
Below are some more 'before' pictures and we will update you as work commences and progresses.
Monday 22nd February is 2021 the scheduled start date.
