Get ahead for 2025
The end of one year and start of another often sparks thoughts of both reflection and of possibilities to come. Gardeners, of course, are masters of thinking ahead but typically, we’ve found that that many of our garden design clients are slightly less so! Often those interested in having their garden professionally designed don’t start thinking about it until the weather starts picking up in the spring - at exactly the point that they want to start enjoying their garden in full; little realising that the process from planning through to build and then to planting can actually take months.
Even if you’re not planning on working with a professional garden designer winter is the perfect time to make the most of that ‘end of one year, start of another’ mindset that is ingrained in us all. But by applying it to your garden, which often doesn’t get a look in at this time of year, it allows you to get ahead - hopefully to the point where your garden will be ready for when you want to enjoy it in 2025.
Review your existing garden
So, thinking back, consider what has worked well for you in the garden this year, what were your highlights and, more importantly, what didn’t work so well for you. Try to think about all the different elements that make up your garden - the planting, the hard landscaping and all of the people, pets and wildlife that interact with it and how, then add into the mix the weather and how that affected the use of your garden. Try to think about function and form, for example: did your garden accommodate everything you wanted from it; when you wanted it; does it look how you’d like it to look, when you wanted it to look it.
It can be a good idea to break down your review by months. So, for instance let’s start with January. You might not engage with your garden in January but that may purely be down to the weather so would a garden shelter for instance make your garden more usable in those inclement weather months? Would all weather furniture make a difference along with an outdoor form of heating? Would slip-free surfaces make your January garden life better? If you’re really not interested in being outdoors in January does your garden still give you something beautiful to look out on at that time? More structural elements in your garden perhaps, and probably way more evergreens than you currently have!
Identify improvement areas
Do this for every single month and chances are you’ll end up with a long list of potential improvement areas, and while these ideas aren’t exhaustive, if you can become aware of the gaps or shortcomings of your garden - or in some cases potential dangers that arose during the previous year (for example surfaces may have become slippery in damp weather) - you can then start planning ways to address them for the coming one. And once you know what you need you’ll then be able to consider the methods required to achieving them.
Professional garden designers
Some of those solutions may well be achievable on your own and sometimes some professional help might just be the ticket. For the most part our clients choose to work with a professional garden designer because they know what’s not working for them in terms of their garden but they can’t quite see the wood for the trees in finding the best way forward for them and their budget. They also find comfort in the idea that we can recommend landscapers because we’ve worked with them on previous builds. But either way, when a professional is involved - whether that’s a garden designer, a landscaper, or both, then for most of us that will mean finding someone reliable and that can take time. Then they have to be available, because, let’s face it, the good ones are often booked up for some time but you can begin to see why now might just be the perfect time to be thinking about your 2025 garden.
