The Blog of Bespoke Garden Design and Build

Earth Designs Garden Design Drawing workshop

 ’2d and 3d Garden Drawing Course’ £250, 2 days 2 students (option to purchase a designers drawing kit for £250) – this course is aimed at new garden designers or students of garden design who wish to refine their drawings skills.  I will teach you how to draw a bird’s eye view plan as well as elevations in order to speed up your process. I will also breakdown the fees charges you need to be considering when charging for design. The second day of the course will see you hone your 3d drawing skills and I guarantee within this course you will leave with a 2d and 3d plan and presentation that you will be proud of and be able to present your work and ideas to clients in a professional manner. I guarantee this will be money well spent as you will then be able to double the fees you charge.

Other students comments:

At the risk of giving you an inflated head I think you are not just a fantastically creative garden designer and business woman but an excellent teacher to boot. I’m sure you must have some faults – perhaps you hide them well? Thanks very, very much again for your valuable help on the course. Joan 2010

Thanks to Katrina for a fabulous drawing course!! My drawings have become so much more professional in just two days. Also she gave us so many tips for how she runs her business – it was invaluable!!
Thank you!! Angelique 2010

Having just spent the most inspirational and informative 2 day drawing course workshop with Katrina and Matt – just wanted to say the biggest thank you. I’m a qualified teacher and i have to say this short course has been the best thing I’ve been lucky enough to attend……..garden designers and students, it’s a must do… If there is one thing you invest time and energy into this year, it will be this! I have come home brimming with confidence, business ideas and knowledge / skills that would have taken months to gain from other courses…Katrina put so much into two days teaching and I simply cannot believe what I’ve achieved. Thank you both soooooooooooooo much. Sue x Sue 2010

Day One

 □       Taking the brief

• Use a checklist
• Contact sheet
• Budget consideration – amount per sqm 

□       Site survey and analysis

• Detailing your findings
• Photographs
• North point
• Boundaries, existing planting, level changes
• Drains, pipes tanks
• Site checklist  

□       Initial thoughts

• Style and taste of a clients home
• Be honest – Champagne taste and beer money
• Understand the key theoretical principles of design
• Use photographs to sketch over ideas 

□       Mood boards

• Magpie other people’s work
• Use images to articulate your ideas
• Keep a scrap book
• Consider products you have seen/used before 

□       Concepts and Sketches

• Apply geometric or natural form to effectively allocate space
• Working loosely with your ideas
• Consider flow, rhythm and balance
• Use of colour 

□       Layout drawings

• Communicate the design by manually drawn plan – (birds eye view and elevation/cross sectional)
• Which scale to use
• Transferring your information from site survey to paper
• Combing your concepts and measurements to scale
• Turning the paper!

□       Understanding plants

• Consider where the planting will be and specimens 

□       Key and labelling your drawings

• Symbols
• Compass Point
• Client information
• Labelling
• Title Block

 □       Tracing over your Skelton drawing

• Establish your style
• Landscape graphics and symbols to materialise a conceptual image
• Employ accepted landscape graphic styles
• From the top to bottom
• Amount of detail and short cuts
• Thickness of pen
• Lettering
• Rubbing out
• Symbols for plants
• Tracing over

  □       Responding to client

• Professional presentation of garden design – graphically, textually, orally
• How much have you charged the client – work out your hourly rate
• Presenting your work
• Use of colour rendering 

Day Two – Support documents and 3d Drawing

□       Drawing elevation

• Transposing design in plan to elevation
• Scale
• Which area to do?
• Tracing over
• Cross sections, Elevation and Section Elevations 

□       Planting Plans

• Laying out of planting plans
• Labelling 

□       Lighting Plans 

□       Construction drawings

• Do I need one?
• Have I charged for it? 

□       Scope of works

□      3d drawing

□       Real life client

To see details of the other courses offered at the Earth Designs Garden Design School please click here

‘So you want to be creative?’

This 2 day garden design course is aimed at students who want to explore ways to nurture and inspire their creativity. Whether you are a budding garden design student or a practising garden designer, Katrina uses the knowledge she gained from her art degree and years of garden design to teach techniques and strategies for finding inspiration from the world of art and design. The course comprises an introduction, which is completed online, followed by two days visiting some of London’s iconic institutions to learn how to place design styles in their context and create a scrapbook of ideas.

Day One (10am – 6pm) - Meet for coffee at the Tate Modern or other Modern Art Gallery in London to discuss our views on art and gain an understanding of the depth of our knowledge of art. We look at how we can draw inspiration from art pieces even if we don’t like the art piece itself. We walk through the galleries looking at different art movemements and briefly exploring the social, political and historical context that may have influenced them at the time. We will then select 5 pieces of art from different eras/movements, and from these try to find inspiration to transpose into a garden design. We explore shapes, texture, colour, proportion, composition, perspective, context, relationship with viewer and emotional response - basically align modern art techniques with the components that help make for great garden designs.

Day Two (9am – 5pm) – We head to the Victoria and Albert Museum to explore 3 galleries. The first is the 20th Centuary gallery, the remaining two will be chosen by the students on Day One. In the 20th Centuary gallery we will select one object from each 20 year period and use that object as a basis for our garden sketches. In the other two galleries the students will select an object for each other – we then pick a stranger walking round the gallery, make some assumptions about their life and personality, and design a garden as if they were the client.

All work is documented and archived and we encourage you to develop it into usuable content for portfolio and web-based projects.

Some comments from past students:-

“Thanks to our fantastic teacher, Katrina. She is just wonderful!! We have been to her open day, to different drawing courses and her “website course”. The last course we came to was the creative session. We just love her and thanks to her our business is doing great here in Norway.” – Kari Mette

“I have been a garden designer for 5 years, but sometimes get artist’s block. This is a great motivator, to remind myself that I can be creative in my gardens and it helped me to connect to the artisit within me that had lain dormant for a few years.” - Janet, 2010

“Inspirational, Intelligent, Invaluable – if you go to this course you will never be short of ideas. This course is exactly what I was looking for.” - Mike, 2010

The course costs £300 for 2 days, plus half day study at home. 2 students maximum per course. Accomodation is not included. 

To see details of the other courses offered at the Earth Designs Garden Design School please click here

• Went to present 3 gardens last week: The first is a long thin garden design in Stanmore. The garden features something for all the family, including a garden office.The second design was for a small garden in a recent new build property in Harlow. The garden had not been touched since the owners moved in. To read all about it click here. The third garden design, in Surrey  was a refreshing break from the norm for Earth Designs in the sense it was a lovely cottage. 
• We have already been given the go ahead for the Stanmore garden and are waiting to hear about the other two. 
•  Went to draw a garden design for a client in Hackney who wants to self build as he is on a small budget. 
• Won a design for a garden in Harlesden. The site has quite a steep gradient which needs addressing. The client has commissioned the design on behalf of his elderly mother and so has requested a low maintenance space. Matt is going to do the survey this week.
• Won the job in Stanmore and work started this week – watch this space for more details.
• Matt finished jobs in Kennington, Greenwich and also in Holloway, which included the installation of a hot tub.
• Received some images from a client whose garden in Leyton we built in our first year of business. It’s always lovely to see how a garden grows and develops and the pleasure it brings a client, even in the thick snow that we had this winter.
• The garden we designed in Hawkwell in Essex continues to develop. The clients are self-building and they keep us up to date with the odd photo.
• Went to draw a garden design sketch in Bromley for a voucher client

An Art Deco Garden for a plantswoman in this Surrey landscape design

The client has lived in the house for a number of years and is currently renovating parts of the house. A keen gardener with an inherited garden, she is struggling to see what works in the space and where she should begin with regard to re-styling the garden. The client installed a pond a year or so ago which she would like to retain in the design. Directly outside the back door there is a small area before the garden levels up. The client would like to increase the size of this space to allow for a larger table when entertaining and socialising with friends. She would also like to ‘grow her own’ and to this end has a greenhouse and raised bed at the bottom of the garden. The house is Edwardian and the client is keen to reflect the age and style of the house in the final design.

The client has lived in the house for a number of years and is currently renovating parts of the house. A keen gardener with an inherited garden, she is struggling to see what works in the space and where she should begin with regard to re-styling the garden. The client installed a pond a year or so ago which she would like to retain in the design. Directly outside the back door there is a small area before the garden levels up. Gill would like to increase the size of this space to allow for a larger table when entertaining and socialising with friends. She would also like to ‘grow her own’ and to this end has a greenhouse and raised bed at the bottom of the garden. The house is Edwardian and the client is keen to reflect the age and style of the house in the final design.

 The area directly adjoining the house will be surfaced with mint fossil sandstone paving laid in a random pattern. An arced rendered block wall will retain the change in level in the space, with curved terraced steps leading to the upper section of the garden. Seating in the lower area will be provided by a concave timber bench fixed to the retaining wall. 

A serpentine pathway edged with black limestone setts will arc down the garden around a central lawn . The first half of this path will be surfaced in mint fossil sandstone, while the second half will be surfaced with a buff self-binding aggregate (hoggin). The two halves of the path will be joined by a small oval patio in mint fossil sandstone.  A series of tall timber arches will frame the first section of the path, adding height and a sense of journey to the space. The second section of the path will feature an edging of step-over fruit trees between the path and the lawn. 

A group of tapering raised beds constructed from railway sleepers will add a little height and depth to the bottom of the garden. 

The existing pond will be improved with the addition of a slate rockery waterfall. A slate chip dressed sunken rill will snake down the garden towards the house, following the curve of the path. At the end will be a self-contained water feature, consisting of a flat slab of slate over which water is fed to cascade into a slate dressed reservoir below.

The clients bought the property from new and have lived at the house for several years. Whilst they have made the interior just as they want it, the garden is as it was when the property was built, with some tired lawn and a concrete slab patio that does not offer the clients any opportunity to entertain or relax. The garden is quite shaded and overshadowed by a large brick wall along the back boundary which is part of a car park beyond.

  The design aims to provide a low maintenance extension of the fresh and breezy nature of the interior of this family home. The area level with and adjoining the house will be paved with light grey sandstone to give enough space for the client to bring their large dining room table out into the garden when they wish to entertain. The remainder of the space will be floored with softwood decking, raised at one end to combat the slope and unite the garden as a continuous level surface. A slate tile edging will separate the sandstone and decked areas.

An ‘L’ shaped flush bed containing 4 box balls and a stainless steel water sphere will create a focal point from the house doors. A softwood timber pergola will enclose the decked area. This will be half roofed with timber joists onto which blue Perspex ‘lenses’ will be fixed. Suspended from the pergola frame is the main feature of the garden – a large, deep, timber swing seat ready for the client to dress with an array of cushions, mattresses and throws. Beaded curtains will hang down either side of the pergola structure to add definition and help to create the illusion of ‘a room in the garden’. Three globe lights hang from the pergola.

Along the left side of the back wall three 90cm high illuminated planters featuring box balls will add day- and night-time interest to the space. This is mirrored on the right side of the back boundary with three in non-illuminated white fibreglass planters. The left hand planters will be framed by three 3 outdoor canvas fixed to the wall (200cm x 40cm), whilst the right hand planters will benefit from a backdrop of backlit blue Perspex panels.

This long, thin garden in Stanmore  is in need of a complete overhaul. The clients have developed their interior to cope with their increasing needs as a small family, and now need to realise the potential of their outdoor space. They would like to include a garden office and require ample space for their very active toddler. Budget constraints are a consideration in the redesign.

The design divides the garden into distinct zones. Directly adjoining the back of the house will be a patio constructed from a combination of mint fossil sandstone slabs, sunken railway sleepers, creeping thyme and a sedum mix to fill, mortared with a sedum mix. The multiple textures in this flooring will give a high degree of interest while allowing the maximum usable surface area. The existing acer palmatum will remain and help frame the entrance to the next section of the garden. 

This divide is accentuated with the addition of a timber screen with apertures of various sizes, some filled – some left open to the view beyond. Some of the apertures are filled with small aggregate and other materials to add more texture to the garden. Directly behind this screen is a timber framed tunnel clad in stainless steel mesh, to the right of which, set back from the screen is the garden office. In front of the garden office, the decking is extended to allow for a cafe style table and chairs. Between the edge of the decking and the patio is a stainless steel sphere water feature nested in a bed, in order that its calming effects can be enjoyed from both the garden office and the patio. Moving down the garden past the existing yew tree, the existing storage chest has been relocated, and sits alongside the path that zig zags its way up the garden. This path will be laid with hoggin and edge in steel. The first lawn (one of three) laid on the diagonal has a timber frame over it to allow for versatility in hanging a swing, or fabric to transform it into a den. lawns 2 & 3 have a timber frame with mesh screen in them to add interest. To the right a raised railway sleeper planter allows the opportunity for a small bit of vegetable gardening. At the bottom of the garden, the space opens out into decking allowing another location at the bottom of the garden for relaxing. A 6 x 4 shed also provides extra storage.