Jan 2012 - work begins on turning what was a former carpark into a productive, sustainable and ecologically mindful garden, that compliments well the environmentally influenced self build house that it surrounds.

Jan 5th - After a chilly marking out of the design's pathways and structures and quick excavation of groundworks it has become apparent that the former carparks presence will play a key factor in the development of this garden space.

Rather than seeing this as a problem, with a little taking-stock and thinking about the benefits presented - a plan to re-use the substantial hardcore material is developing, along with a plan to develop a great central herb bed using the free-draining sandy qualities.

            A key aspect of this garden's design brief is no flowers for flowers sake - more an emphasis on productive / useable plant material, whether fruit, herb or veg....etc

 Recycle,re-use + reduce gets underway....

9th Jan      Levels set and edging trenches in, it is now a carefully organised pile of wood, soil and bricks.Now begins introducing the basic structure of the garden in the form of natural edgings using recycled wood and sandstone plus other materials in places.

11th Jan The beginnings of a hawthorn hurdle edging that serves as a great boundary for the future herb bed as well as garden divider/shaper.....

the hawthorn is the remains of a former clients hedge required to be removed.At 25 years+ of age, it deserves further use beyond shredding/composting. Here i have it lifted off the ground to keep it dry and airy using left over larch battons from the self build. These will now be concreted in for added strength and then the branches smoothed/ de-snagged for the unwary passer-by...

A proper frost arrived this week 14th Jan, turning this Edinburgh garden space into an ice cube. There is always something of benefit that can be done however and today it was smashing the large clay clods I had set aside for such a day. Once the clods have shattered the surrounding mushroom compost will get in amongst them preventing them from reforming,this allows the plant roots easier access to water and nutrients.Frost itself does a similar slower version all on its own.

jan 16th - works are well underway creating a woodland work area for the shed area of the garden. The ecobuild uses a wood burning fire to heat the house along with heat capture design, therefore this garden needs a good wood working and storage area. This has been constructed out of left over off-cuts and pallets from the self build house construction.

         I am starting to tag this landscaping approach as "hillbilly chic" as it is in essence the re-cycle and re-use often utilised by self-sufficient groups. I am trying to do it along with a keen eye for good garden design aesthetics, so the end product has a coordinated,balanced and chic feel.....a quick google search showed (as always) I am not the first to use this phrase for garden design, maybe the first in Edinburgh though?

         I am very happy with the recycled-pallets garden divide, which seperates the work area from the garden whilst also protecting the logstore from the elements(as well as providing some shelf space for potting up plants etc....) material costs are minimal for this part of works( there is some crafty labour costs!)

24th Jan excavation of circular patio area ....by hand. I know that approximately half the area is loamy woodland topsoil and the other half is former carpark sub-base. I excavated the good topsoil removing perennial dandelions,docks and nettles etc and put aside on previously prepared bed areas.This is slow, steady and satisfying work, because I am gaining great topsoil for future planting ( making that job when it comes, a lot easier). I am also learning what the topsoil,sub-soil and woodland "weeds" are, which is invalueable knowledge (and lost to those sat in a digger).

I then utilised the hardcore substrate of brick+concrete (dug up preparing the bed areas previously and set aside) to infill the excavated area and form the beginings of the patios sub-base.( I seperated of all the best looking full and half bricks just incase they may prove useful later in the project) all materials have moved 20 metres max as opposed the 100 m, if they were to go in a skip.

path from decking is now clear of rubble and the deep patio excavation now filled in with large grade hardcore (ready for finer grade substrate to bind it all together and make a solid base). The other half of the patio area was a former carpark, and is already a good base for a patio ( once mud and stuff skimmed off surface) This 'old for new' design approach took 3 hours labour with no material costs, and produced two tonnes of good loamy topsoil. A 'new for old' approach would have taken about two hours to dig off and skip the soil/weeds/debris ( even with a digger, as it stays put  with the skip around the front,still needing the stuff barrowed to it) just under an hour or so to replace dug-off topsoil with two ton of type 1 hardcore - material costs at least £250 up to £400+ once digger involved.

               I am not against using diggers, just unnecessary use of diggers. I watched a guy in a JCB build a fantastic looking drystone wall in an afternoon, that would have taken me 4-5 days(with another person helping to lift the largest stones).

Either way - today (like a good accountant) I paid for myself with my actions.  I now also know far better ( having touched, smelled and accidently tasted the soil) what the growing and 'weed' conditions are likely to be over the new garden's first couple years....

Jan 27th

  Before                  After     

     Work is all but complete on the new wooden fence along the original security fence shown in the first photo. This fence is constructed of leftover timber and pallets from the house build. It still needs to be sanded and few finishing touches ( one more batton along trellis top section etc) but it is as good as done. It has been the hardest aspect to craft-together so far! The reason being is there is a lot of different wood being used in the garden overall now, and this fence does not sit well with the builders hit/miss fence along the two boundaries.The overall design is on the edge now of looking ' hillbilly cheap' as opposed the 'hillbilly chic' i am aiming to achieve.

          I have a good idea of what extra touch will bring all aspects of the garden structures  and house together ( for this sustainable Edinburgh garden project) but will need to wait till Monday to try it. It could be the difference between a burach and beautiful....

My idea was to install a combined willow and heather screen to seperate the two fences with a diefferent texture and colour whilst maintaining the overall feel/style of the garden....

February begins - Part of my clients briefs was to help disguise the storm and waste water system which was required to be at 50cm height above general garden level as it needed to join existing system at these levels.

  My plan is to work with this and disguise it as bedrock whilst maintaining easy access to drains in the future.... big rocks are needed and for that I went to brick and stone suppliers near edinburgh who can supply suitably large natural stone rocks....

4th Feb 2012 - Drains blend into garden landscape....

The two drain manholes are disguised amongst large rocks which will be planted and devoped to look like a rocky outcrop left exposed after house building excavations.... access to the drains is if anything easier now.It's all part of turning landscape problems into beneficial features.With all the wood used both in the house and garden the cool colours and hard texture of the rocks adds a lot to the whole garden design ( it also offers the oppertunity for some great little alpines - edible or useable of course...!)

7th Feb 2012

Freezing conditions arrived at same time as the large selection of bareroot fruit trees.The trees were kept in a garage over the wknd and also through monday - the roots should never dry out and allowing them to freeze is incredibly risky also( certainly do not move them if they are). on Monday work began around midday( once sun had thawed ground) to dig up all the tree holes, organic matter and root fertiliser worked into loose soil. I then refilled all the holes and placed hessian sacking over each of them and left them overnight.

                       Another freezing night and again work began around midday taking the bareroot trees out of the garage and down to garden, the roots were all soaked for 20 seconds and covered away from sun. I then dug up all the previously dug holes which were not frozen under the hessian and got trees ready. They were individually planted with 2ft high stakes located firmly middle of holes between bareroots ( best not done for pot grown) to support tree for first couple of years - great care taken to ensure soil used was loose and not clumpy or frozen, as this could produce air pockets around roots and risk loosing the trees through poor root health/growth.

          All trees got planted by 4pm allowing time to mulch generously with bark to insulate area around the roots and tie the trees firmly to theit temporary stakes.I tend to secure pot grown more loosely to encourage the tree to root more strongly in response to less support, but bareroots have no support - certainly for the first year. Freezing again tomorrow but the large bareroot trees are in and fine and with plenty of time to establish before the warmer/drier months of the growing season.

         The trees are a mix of apple,pear,cherry,plum and crab apple and have be planted sporadically at various points throughout the garden space ( generally near paths/patio for easier picking) they have been planted to bring some vertical height and depth to the garden and to introduce more privacy from overlooking properties, whilst maintaining maximum sun exposure for the sitting areas as well as the heat capture house this edinburgh garden surrounds.

         The trees whilst providing fruit at various times of the year also work well aesthetically to help draw in the nearby woodland landscape, and if 10 years from now 11 fruit trees prove too many for the garden space, then some of them ( worst fruiting) can always be felled and used as fuel for the log burning stove - wood worth far more than their original bareroot cost....and smelling great!

13th Feb Almost balmy compared to last week and as such work gets underway on the patio area which surrounds a 'future' sheltered seating area (bench seating for now) - which ideally will eventually be lime rendered with a living roof).

              The sandstone paving is already working well at giving structure and solidity to the overall garden and the soft sandstone hues are complimenting the various wood tones very well. Once completed as a circular patio surrounded by herbs and other useable/edible plants it should look, smell and taste great!

17th Feb - Now past expected completion time and a bit like a 400m runner coming of the last bend into the straight, i can now see what is required for the finish....and given it's February and early in the season it's not too bad!

                95% of the structure is in, only a few sections needing soil work/conditioning, then after first phase of planting put down the pathway materials etc. There is a lot of little bits and finishes to do to really bring together the new garden and they all become apparent the closer to finishing i get - a case of lists, new lists....newer lists.... there is also a pile of great 2nd hand bricks dug up from the bed areas and ultimately not required in the construction of the garden - main reason being it would be likely one material too many.

                Looking forward to sourcing the first phase of herbaceous plants on Monday with a brief to not have flowers for flowers sake but a garden comprised of useable plants - which may also have wonderful flowers at various times of the year ( there will also be a patch left for nettles and ground elder- if present - on the woodland edge as both are edible and useable)This Edinburgh garden desperatley needs some fresh green foliage now to break up the wood and stone and help it come together as a warm,vibrant and relaxing space....

24th Feb Mild conditions have helped in the latter stages of this project and the planting is well underway now. Soil conditions are still getting worked on and the relatively dry weather has helped in smashing up clay clumps to help it mix with organic matter. The herbs, shrubs and herbaceous are all pot grown but care to avoid air gaps through lumpy soil must be taken, for many plants I have souced the best loamy soil to bed the plants in.

         I had a canny plan to combine the start of the next garden project with the end of this project,as both jobs had some natural material swaps avail - half bricks for back filling a retaining wall enclosed seating area for all the soil excavated for this construction ( I have a view that a design that inolves the removal of soil is in some way wrong, there are exceptions and a steep sloping narrow front garden is one....) The soil is full of nutrients and largely weed free....great....except it is also nearly as clayey as this garden and so needs a few days to dry out and get smashed up along with the rest....any nutrient rich soil for what was a former carpark is always a good thing!

       A broad selection of soft fruit shrubs sit on the deck ready for planting next week as this winter project draws to a finish, just before the bareroot season....I wait to see early signs of the bareroot fruit trees Spring to life.

28th Feb - This exceptionally mild weather is helping a great deal in conditioning the soil. I am choosing not to use a rotovator after learning the compaction problems it can aid by the teeth whirling away to 6" depth churning up the ground whilst smoothing off the next layer (below) with the flat side of the teeth ( particularily with clay)

                I am trying a made up approach of digging over ground over and over with a fork and leaving the large clumps to dry of the surface then smashing them with either a fork, back of axe or sledge hammer depending on size, strength needed etc if they squish.... needs another day drying - hence the mild weather really helping.

          This is not a quick way to go about it but I reckon effort wise is similar to rotovating as a lot of pre - during - and post forking of the ground is needed with a rotovator in reality. It is one of those bits of kit that promises much and continually under delivers....and never reaches a decent depth without removing all the safety kit ( which is there for a reason)

          The soil is really shaping up now with 7-8 hours effort spread out over many weeks, it is slow but essential as the garden is the soil.

          Since deciding to move away from a systematic "groundforce" approach to landscaping based largely around time and cost(both being as little as possible) and towards a more systemic open-ended approach, I have noticed a change in my reputation ( last couple of years) from being hardworking and getting a lot done quickly,to now being good but ' slow' - I admit this still gets under my skin, as I interpret it as in essence being  ' not good enough, should do better' even though i know this is a paradigm born out of a projectified world of 'time is money' and exactly what I am challenging as irrelevant to truly effective and balanced landscaping ( fortunately on this project my client is fully onboard and a large influence on how I am going about this particular project, and had nothing but positive input - which helps!)

         The soil for this Edinburgh garden will take years to become quality loamy soil, years of being worked and enriched with compost/organic matter. In January it was 8" of clay based topsoil on top of a hardcore base for a carpark and garages - end of Feb it is appx 2 ft deep workable soil full of mushroom compost and grit(from harcore base) 95% less bricks as, like weeds, it would be realistically impossible to find and remove them all - as they were evrywhere buried under 8" of clay topsoil ( a building standards requirement of builders on completion of a build - bury everything under a thin layer(12") of soil)

        With this project I thought I was bringing together 12 years experience, ideas and 3 years environemntal studies into a unique cocktail of an approach. I started of this blog calling it ' hillybilly chic ' landscaping and a naturalised  ecological approach to garden design. Looking up the web for more ideas on plant choices to go well with the random spread of half standard fruit trees, led me to discovering a garden design movement exactly matching what i am doing with this Edinburgh garden design - and it has been going on for years - Edible forest gardens forget about the ideas - the name is great!

Where it all began in January:

 Where we have got to beginning of March:

Mid March 2012 - back from a week away and the signs of spring are evident, with all bareroot fruit trees budding and the potted nectarine already into flower.Soil still needs light forking over and dry clay clumps smashed, but more as a sideline now. All plants appear fully fit and healthy so it is more a case of being ready for the first wave of weeds, whether flying in by wind or already resident within the soils seed bank.

      I am really looking forward to watching this garden mature and develop, very happy with it's basic structure and prep, if i am right it should be a garden that has a different character/ focus throughout the year and knit together really well.

This is the beginning of a new 'forest garden design' Edinburgh. Forest gardens mimick the biodiversity and ecology found in a balanced mature forest habitat, to create a beneficial and sustainable garden

End of March - The unknown is always difficult to work with, and as questions were asked about the health of the newly planted bareroot fruit trees I didn't know for certain! Only time would tell, and a couple weeks after other 'established' apple trees  in other gardens were leafing out ( and adding to the doubt/unknown) ....finally all trees have begun to leaf out.

Although i have completed this stage of the gardens construction, I still pop by to see how things are in regards to the new gardens development ( mainly the fruit trees budding and likely signs of first crop of weeds). Each time I am desperate to see the new garden full of green foliage and wildlife etc and have an urge to buy a whole load more plants and fill it out...........which is exactly the wrong thing to do and exactly what I am actively moving away from in garden design and construction........Patience and continued involvement is what is required over years...... 3 years from now is the time the garden is  established well enough, to be called a garden. Right now it is embryonic and will need nurtured( not necessarily continueously) as it develops to a point it can to some degree look after itself.

May 2012 - Fruit trees are all now leafing out : ) 

Work has also got underway on producing a wildflower meadow for the front garden,this years focus is on producing an annual wildflower meadow and bringing up amongst it a longer term perennial wildflower meadow which is shade tolerant due to north facing aspects ( not that shady on preperation day)

The client aerated the area of compacted builders soil and once the seeds arrived I prepared layers of sand and soil to appx 4 inch depth to aid drainage and reduce general fertility,whilst also blocking light for the existing crop of wildflowers(weeds) and grasses etc.

A final layer of sand once spread compacted and levelled out to help bed in seeds in a low fertility growing medium whilst blocking even more light from existing seed bed in original topsoil(dandelions,willowherb etc) It luckily rained overnight although with the sandy growing medium keeping seeds from rotting and top layer of sand from view of birds etc - the set up can be left to its own accord ( its meant to be below freezing tonight 5th May!) its just a case of wait and see now.....

I have just re-visited an Edinburgh garden in greenbank which I constructed 4-5 years ago, it was designed to be easier to look after and the approach was to replicate in essence a wild coastal walk somewhere in East Lothian ( gorse,whin and grass style). This wildness should accomodate a less manicured garden whilst remaining attractive to view and walk through.

On calling by this week( 8 months later than I planned) with last Autumns weeds and a whole Winters effects showing, the garden bore a resemblence to a forgotten garden discovered in the grounds of an old derelict house( slight exaggeration).It looked like a big task to get it under control.

            I am a fan of selfbinding grit for use on surfaces to be useful as hard surfaces but not enough to warrent the high cost of full paving. It compacts solid by physical ( not chemical) action and so can be reworked very easily repeatedly. It is also, as I have discovered, very efficient at growing shallow rooted weeds ( could be magic medium for wildflower meadows?) The important curving 'coastal style' path had all but disappeared under moss,meadow grass and other culprits in sections - with all this in mind we set about trying to recover back a garden.......The path took 3hrs to weed, de-moss, rake and relevel back to it's former self ( see pic ) and is good for another 2-3 years with just a bit of care - i still like self bind gravel, almost as much as the weeds! ; )

After two half day efforts and an impromptu building of a wildlife pool (with left over materials found in truck from previously finished works) The garden is back to how it was originally on day one ( similar in a way  to the ecological garden above) except everything is now matured and better. The pathgrit is a deeper dark orange rather than bright gold/orange, all shrubs and plants have filled out their space, block work has moss and algae to help soften it, yet still works well in its structuring job. All in all it looks very similar to how it was on completion of construction 4-5 years ago, just a lot better, like it is now worn in and fitting better - the shallow pool for birds to drink and bathe in, will have water in it on Monday but will still need a few years before it has properly settled in as well.

After a few hours weeding, clearing and re-instating plus adding a shallow pool....

Monday morning and starting the full dig off and level changing. Throughout these stages of a project is the continuous thought....I should get a digger in! Unless the project is the size of a small field ( as was the case one time) most of my projects don't really need the services of a digger, even if I could get it through the house and up the steps...

              Using a digger also seperates you a little from what is really going on underneath the gardens surface.With its increased speed and capacity it also seperates you from some potentially great new 'plans of action' that develop over the hours of digging and moving the ground... a digger doesnt inspire the same creativity.

              As we seek to work with and reuse what is already present in a garden, a full and rich understanding of what is going on needs to develop.This only really happens by getting stuck in and dirty....

             We also have been skip free for 4 years now and that does not work well for efficient digger use, as you need to remove your excavations as you go which means power barrels to skips - time is money....! You can pile the soil for re-use but it will still be full of half bricks, builders packaging and natural stone./roots... unless your seperate each bucket load! this will bring progress almost back to the speed of manual digging whilst adding the cost of a digger + extras such as building fort knox to protect the digger overnight as stipulated by insurance conditions.

            Manual dig offs are hard work and slower but usually cost no more over-all and often save costs/time through material re-use and better planning of groundworks. Todays dig off has uncovered an existing hardcore surface ( former carpark) re-useable as it is for the pathways and produced 3 tons of nutrient rich clay based topsoil -now de-bricked,stoned,rubbished. This existing soil will be rotovated with generous quantities of recycled organic matter (later in the project) and moved to the newly constructed planting areas. More compost then added and rotovated again, perhaps including some of the hardcore dug off from the planting areas, to improve the drainage....that is to be mulled over during the next days dig off!