RE: Case Study Garden Designs

David Feix said "I'd be interested to hear other case studies for how
people design their gardens..."

As I am not a professional designer I take a rather more haphazard approach 
to designing than David does. My garden is large (2.5 acres) and is being 
designed bit-by-bit over an extended timeframe (many years) rather than as 
a one-off exercise.

In this part of New Zealand the climate is temperate and the garden can be 
enjoyed all year round, although it is not quite a 'medit' climate (too 
wet). My garden has been designed for walking through, with many meandering 
paths. I like to design my garden for foliage texture, form and colour 
first and use flower colour for seasonal accents and to differentiate 
different parts of the garden (some parts pastel pinks, some parts hot 
reds, some yellow and purple). Ideally every part of the garden visible 
from the house would look attractive 365 days of the year and every part of 
the garden would have at least one colour accent even in the depths of 
winter, to draw the eye on a dull grey day. Those parts that are more 
remote and have to be walked through to view them can have 'off' seasons 
where nothing is happening. For example, my bog gardens, pond and 
streamside areas include predominantly deciduous perennials such as Hosta, 
Japanese Iris, Gunnera tinctoria, Astilbe and others. In the winter there 
is little to be seen in these gardens other than bare soil.

Tim Dutton
"Raindrops", Main Road North, Kaitoke, Upper Hutt, New Zealand
(Latitude 41? 5' South, Longitude 175? 10' East)
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