EP217- Edel Feighery Garden Designer Gives Her Garden Design & Planting Tips That You Can Use In Your Own Garden!

In this weeks episode John is joined by Galway based garden designer Edel Feighery to chat about all things garden design. From How to start a garden? To planning and design Tips and everything in between.

Have you ever gazed at your garden, wondering how to transform it into a personal refuge that mirrors your own story? Let's embark on that journey together with Edel  garden designer whose roots in a midlands farm have blossomed into a business crafting bespoke garden sanctuaries for her clients.

In today's episode, Edel shares the evolution of her career from a tranquil pursuit during the pandemic to the thrill of nurturing her own garden design business. Her personal narrative intertwines with professional insights, laying out a path for anyone aiming to breathe new life into their outdoor spaces.

Navigating the garden design process, Edel and I peel back the layers of creating a garden that's not just a visual delight, but also a practical, low-maintenance haven. We dissect the essentials of layout, hard landscaping, and plant selection, furnishing you with tips to harmonise your dream vision with the often-overlooked aspect of garden care.  This episode serves as a compass to guide you through the vital steps of planting and mulching, ensuring your garden thrives with only the gentle touch of your hand.

As the conversation meanders through the seasons, we reveal how to cultivate a garden that captivates the senses year-round. From the springtime spectacle of Malus 'Evereste' to the autumnal colour of Amelanchier, we stitch together a tapestry of plants that promise a continual feast for the eyes. Edel shares her philosophy on dividing the gardening year into six distinct phases, aiming to keep your garden's narrative engaging from the crispness of winter to the last sigh of autumn. For those inspired to pick up the trowel or seeking the partnership of a garden designer, this episode is a treasure trove of planting wisdom and aesthetic guidance. Join us, as we plant not just gardens, but the seeds of everlasting outdoor stories.

You can contact Edel Here:  

Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/edelfeigherygardendesign?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

If there is any topic you would like covered in future episodes, please let me know.
Email:  info@mastermygarden.com   

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Until next week  
Happy gardening  
John 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

How's it going everybody? Welcome to episode 217 of Master my Garden podcast. Now, this week's episode, I'm delighted to be joined by garden designer Adele Fury and we're going to come at it from a slightly different angle. So we've had garden designers on the past that we've talked a lot about their style, but today we're going to talk about Adele's style, but we're also going to talk about the things that you can look out for, as you're maybe starting to think about your own garden, whether that's getting the garden design or whether that's putting your own stamp on it. So we're starting to come at it from a different angle, with lots of points that we want to get to, and it's going to be very interesting for anybody who is starting a garden in the earlier stages or is maybe looking to add some features in the garden. So, adele, you're very, very welcome to Master my Garden podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Good morning John. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to have you, Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:02

So you're having started your business a couple of years now, so maybe just tell us a little bit about what has brought you to becoming a garden designer.

Speaker 2: 1:12

Yeah, I suppose I'm a no spring chicken coming into this. I've. I grew up in a farm, john, from County Offaly, and it was kind of like a tillage farm and vegetable farm. So I was always kind of surrounded by kind of not so much gardening but that type of lifestyle, yeah, and yeah, so it's not something gardening. My passion for gardening grew as I've probably got a bit older, and especially, I suppose, when you get your own house, which was probably 2003. And then I had an opportunity to, you know, kick on and do my own little garden, but you know that was a small urban garden, so I kind of outgrew that. And then we came out here and just living outside Clarenbridge and it was great opportunity with this site and yeah, so I kind of just been working at my own garden for a number of years here and I suppose, like everyone during COVID, it was like you know, you were so focused on your garden. And then it was like people have been saying to me you know, I'd rather you should be thinking about doing this professionally.

Speaker 2: 2:19

And I went, okay, yes, I'd put a lot of thought into that and yeah, so there. And then at that point it was like it was probably putting up a few posts on Instagram and people were enjoying what I was doing. So I was getting a little bit of feedback, positive feedback. And then I had a sister who's in business and she said to me you tell you kind of need to do you have a qualification. So that was it. So I, two years ago, then I took off up to Dublin and I did a garden design course and yeah, and so how has it been?

Speaker 1: 2:57

So you're 18 months, two years, up and running, now. How has it been?

Speaker 2: 3:03

How have you found it, yeah. So I suppose the course in itself was an eye opener, because there's so much more to garden design than just planting. I have learned all about the principles of garden design and how to build a garden from construction, for all the landscapers do, and you know so, yeah. So there was a lot of learning to be done and you know, when I finished the course I was really delighted to get up and get going and having new clients. Again, there's a lot of learning with that too, because you're not you're no longer just working in your own garden and setting up your own business. It was my first business kind of that I've been setting up on my own, so it is enjoyable. But I think you know I've learned that you kind of have to take it slowly, not to take on too much on board for now.

Speaker 1: 3:55

Yeah, Very good, so congratulations on completing the course and getting up and running anyway.

Speaker 2: 4:01

Thank you yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:05

It's always. At any stage of anyone's life, it's a big undertaking, but you seem to be taking this and making great strides forward, so well done with that. As I say, we had some discussion points that we were going to talk about. You know, all around gardening. The first thing that strikes me your business has developed from your own personal passion and your own development of your garden outside Clarenbridge, and I'm sure when you were designing your own garden you had a sort of a style or a team that you like and that's probably unique to you. Is that the sort of style you carry through into your business, or do you think that it's a case of you know, speaking to the clients and developing a style that suits them? How does that sort of marry across?

Speaker 2: 4:56

I think I'm lucky. When we arrived here, this garden was very much that whole naturalistic look to it. It was never a designed garden by the previous owner. So around the garden we have a lot of lovely hawthorn and you know it has stone walls and the style of planting I was always probably working with kind of slightly woodland edge, that kind of a garden style. So yeah, and I think you know there's been lots of trees that I've worked with in my garden hawthorn and very it's very natural here and I think that's the way garden design is kind of moving. You know, people are obviously very aware now they want to bring nature into the garden and bringing in trees is very beneficial. So, yeah, what I have here, I think it's very much what's developing in other people's gardens.

Speaker 1: 5:54

Yeah, so it has been a natural sort of transition, then, because yeah, very much.

Speaker 2: 6:02

So. Yeah, it's just the style of planting. Here there's a lot of native plants and trees. You know crab apple, and you know I've brought then other. You know I've kind of worked basically from that kind of canopy down to looking at what I can make easy maintenance throughout the garden. So yeah, so that in itself has been nice. It's like you have a lot of woodland type planting throughout.

Speaker 1: 6:35

If someone is starting, you know they're in their new home, which is where, as you said, you developed your your slight bug for gardening. I think most people would find that they get into your home, then they look to develop a little patch and it becomes successful, and then eventually they catch the bug as well. It seems to be. It seems to be something that happens almost everybody Well, not everybody, but a lot of people. So where where would you advise somebody to start? You know, maybe to avoid mistakes to the sort?

Speaker 2: 7:09

of. I think, john, and sometimes you know to design a garden, you're almost better off to start when you meet your architect designing your house. You know you're getting your house together and if you can at that point even engage a garden designer about the garden and you know the garden designer at that point would be just giving you advice on the spatial planning and the layout. You know and that's exactly what you want. You know it's important that you get that right from the start, that the layout of the garden, and that you're not making big mistakes and putting things like the patio in the wrong area or the garden shed, taking off your lovely sunny spot in the garden.

Speaker 2: 7:51

So I would say, if you have an opportunity when you're designing your house, get your interior designer. They probably do that anyway for inside. But you know your garden designer, it's good and it might be just a consultation. That's all you might just want and it's just to get the layout and the spatial planning right. You know that's important. Sometimes you find that it's when the build is complete and then the client would bring you and say, oh my God, they've decided now they do the patio for us, and when client is put under pressure, you know. Then you can finally make his decisions and probably it's rushed and you will get as good a finish as if it's more planned and thought out. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:38

I think that's really good advice in terms of, particularly in terms of you know self builds or new builds. You know, some people obviously don't have any choice around orientation and so on if they're, if they're moving into a house in the state or a house in scheme. But if you're doing a self build or you know a one off house and you have input into orientation of house and all the rest of it, it's engaging with a garden designer in that early stage, as you say, even if it's only for the basic consultation of what should we be looking out for here. I think that's a very good point.

Speaker 2: 9:14

Yeah, I think some people, you know, might feel they haven't got the budget at that time for the garden design and obviously they're putting all their money into getting their house together. But you know, even if it's just that consultation just to get the spatial layout right, and then I mean that's what I would have done with some clients so far and it's very much the design will you know, they'll come back to me then when it comes to hard landscaping, which will be the next part of it, you know, and we'd look at how they the types of finishes and and the style right. And then you know, it might be two years time before it gets to actually the last part of the design, which is the planting and furniture and the planting. But you know it can all be done at stages.

Speaker 1: 10:01

So the big thing is is to get your. You have to figure out your, your site orientation, you know, have a vague idea of where things are going initially and and then from there your house gets built, and then you can, you can develop out your plan after that.

Speaker 2: 10:16

Yeah, absolutely. And to figure out the orientation, you know some people might realise you're very much looking at the sun, you know. And where does the sun shine? And you know if you want to have a nice, if you want to use your garden in the morning, well then you would like an east facing area for your you know your seating, catch the sun in the morning and then, as the sun, as the sun progresses during the day, you know you might decide that that that's going to be a good sunny spot, or you might prefer a shady spot for your dining area. And then, you know, if you just prefer to be out in your garden in the evening and you want west facing sun for your, you know, for evening entertainment area, yeah, so it's just to lay it out according to the orientation of the sun.

Speaker 1: 11:01

Yeah, and on a practical level that makes such a difference because we have our sort of outdoor dining area or barbecue area, let's say and it gets all the evening sun, so it's getting the sun from three o'clock literally until it disappears, so it's a perfect spot for evening.

Speaker 1: 11:20

Would you? You sit there in the morning with your, which are coffee at any time of the year, and it's cold because it's actually getting completely shaded and, the way it is, there's a little bit of a wind comes around it, so it's not at all nice to sit for a coffee in the morning. So, yeah, we've just created another little spot at the back which, basically, is getting full sun in the morning. Now we might not get to sit out there too many days, but the days we do it'll be nice and it'll be warm, it'll be sunny.

Speaker 2: 11:48

Yeah, and that's what we'd encourage is just to try and find, if you have an opportunity, if you haven't, you know enough space in your garden to try and find a couple of different areas it's not just the patio area to try and find a place that you can actually go in the morning and if you can try and encourage a little bit of moving around the garden, you know, and that can be done with seating areas. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:10

Yeah, for sure. And so someone has, you know, engaged a garden designer as a consultation at the start, and now they're looking at their garden and where to get started with actually creating a garden. What sort of tips would you be given, you know, to get started, assuming they've got, you know, a reasonable handle on the orientation and they've got that right. And now they're starting to, you know, maybe develop or create a garden.

Speaker 2: 12:37

Yeah, yeah. So once the zoning is done and once they've decided on, I mean, they'll obviously have a wish list as well of things that they would like to bring into the garden. And sometimes I find you just have to advise your client that you know it has to. Your garden may not be able to accommodate absolutely everything that they want on the wish list, right? So it's been practical about it and deciding on what your garden is able to, is capable of, you know what you're able to achieve in that, in that space, yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:16

So after that, once you've all that figured out, then it kind of moves on to the hard landscaping and deciding on materials. You know. So again, you know, say, your natural stone finish, like a limestone finish or whatever for your patio. And then it's only when you have all the hard landscaping and that decided on, then you kind of look at the planting. So I mean, that's the, it's lovely, it's lovely. Some plants. I find they're very interested in the planting and maybe they make a mistake of buying a certain amount of plants for the garden and you know, trying to figure how to bring it into your garden can be difficult. So if you get the hard landscaping finished, then you know exactly where your planting areas are and what type of plants are more suited for the specific areas of the garden you might, your garden might, be in shade, so again at that point then you'd be looking at planting for shade. Yeah, so there's the getting the layout right, getting the hard landscaping materials together and then working on planting.

Speaker 1: 14:25

And so, from from your perspective as a garden designer, if someone is you know, has this idea in their head, are they better to, you know, roughly sketch out something and drop a wish list of what you know the family wants from the garden and then come to you with that?

Speaker 2: 14:44

Yeah, absolutely yeah, and I suppose it's important tip I've learned is not to be completely yes person to all the client's wishes because, like, sometimes you know that what they're looking for it's not achievable in their garden. So again, you just have to look at exactly what they're looking for and try and decide on the best option for them. Yeah, so you might be saying no to some things as diplomatically as possible.

Speaker 1: 15:13

Yeah, Okay, and some something springs to mind and it sort of leads me to the next point we had on our list of to talk about. I was having a conversation yesterday about garden designers and specifically there was a couple of garden designers that came up in the conversation and how this person loved their designs to a certain extent, but asked me the question how would, how much work would be involved in maintaining that garden after they walked out. It was an interesting one because this person particularly liked a garden designer and but for me, looking at it, there would be a huge amount of garden maintenance going forward in almost all of the gardens that I see being created by this designer, and I thought that was it was something I hadn't really talked much about previously, but I think that would be a consideration for people as well. Am I right in saying that?

Speaker 2: 16:20

Absolutely yeah. And I mean most clients would say to you oh my God, I don't want too much maintenance. Yeah, so I mean you look at trying to reduce the maintenance, obviously, and make it as easy maintenance as possible. But, like you know, in my opinion, if that's the case, then you don't bring the whole garden together full of perennials, you know. You would actually be looking at maybe a higher percentage of shrubs, flowering shrubs, nice variety of shrubs and trees, nice small ornamental specimen trees, and I would be a good advocate for ground cover planting. So you know that's a great way of making your garden low maintenance. So if you're putting in predominantly shrubs, well then you just make sure you have a good planting of ground cover beneath it and say, for example, in this garden, you know, there's a lot of evergreen euphorbia. It's a brilliant ground cover plant, you know, and it works really well.

Speaker 2: 17:26

So, yeah, so I would be saying we'd go with a planting scheme where there would be, you know, maybe two thirds shrubs and maybe one third perennials, but the shrubs will always be under planted with ground cover. You know, and even the perennials you choose, like I would be choosing stuff that's going to come out, that's, it's going to it's. You know, over time it'll all knit together and I suppose at the start it's important to mulch the beds after the planting is done, because it takes two to three years, john, for the whole planting scheme to knit together. And yeah, so for the first couple of years you'd be informing or trying to look. When this is planted up it'll be nicely mulched and you know it will get easier as the plants mature.

Speaker 1: 18:17

Yeah, yeah. No, I just thought it was interesting because this person is in the process of looking for a garden designer and they were asking you know about these designs? And I just asked her how much time she had to spend in the garden and she said literally none. So someone wants this garden delivered as it looks, but they have no time to spend in it for the next couple of years, so it's going to be a jungle of weeds and it's not.

Speaker 2: 18:46

No, you could pick, it's like even with the perennials, and that like there's a lot of good plants out there that don't need much work. You know, and that's the important thing, it's just to choose that as a good variety of cardworking plants and, I suppose, not to plant it too skimpy. You know, not to be leaving too much bare ground from the start, you know.

Speaker 1: 19:12

Yeah, for sure. You mentioned ornamental trees there. What's your kind of go-to ornamentals at the moment? I know it's different for different size gardens, but you know, is there any that you're kind of using a lot at the moment that you really like?

Speaker 2: 19:24

Yeah, this time of the year it's all about blossom and bulbs. Spring is fabulous time and it's quite easy this time of the year to choose nice trees, ornamentals, and I mean you have lovely crab apple trees. I particularly like malice Everest. It's a beautiful tree, lovely blossom, and it has all year round interest well, you know, maybe for three seasons anyway, because it produces beautiful crab apples. Crab apple, then that sees you through the entire winter and so, yeah, malice Everest is a lovely one. I like amalancure. I mean that's kind of a star worth in the garden design industry. It's a lovely spring blossom, great autumn colour. And you know you have other trees like, if you can choose maybe small multi-stem trees that might have a nice bark, such as like prune cerule, isogrysium, something. In the winter when all the foliage is gone, you have a nice bark structure and that in itself can be a nice interest architecture as well.

Speaker 1: 20:36

Yeah, and you mentioned ground cover planting and you did mention evergreen euphorbia. What else are you using there as your ground cover?

Speaker 2: 20:46

Yeah, well, the evergreen euphorbia is a great one. It depends on the soil type. There's another lovely one, pachy Sandra. That kind of likes more of a acidic soil. Yeah, I mean even geranium. You know there's a lot of geraniums that are kind of semi-evergreen, that I would use in planting schemes and they look well even throughout the summer. Then with, if you have like roses and other summer planting scheme, there's other ones like kind of like more woodland, like sweetwoodruff and Camilla Malus. That's lovely ones, kind of a nice lime green flower in it. There's kind of plenty to choose from. But it depends then on your soil type and if it's dry or if it's moist. You know those.

Speaker 1: 21:31

Yeah, we spoke about planting for year round interest and I think this is especially in a garden that maybe somebody has done themselves. They go into their garden centre or their nursery at a particular time of the year and they buy everything that looks nice on that day and they put it into the garden so it looks well at that time of the year every year. But maybe they're not getting the sort of spread across the seasons.

Speaker 2: 21:56

So any tips for you know, planting for year round interest, which yeah, and that's the problem, and it's particularly this time of the year people will go oh my god, I better, I want to get the garden going. So they go out and then start choosing the loaded plants that will look good from now until maybe June, july, you know. So to plant for year round interest, really. You know that planting is best, it's almost best to start planting your garden in the ocean and you kind of sit down and you go look at how many seasons have I to try and to get through. So you have, in the autumn I'd be planning.

Speaker 2: 22:33

So what's going to give me interest in the winter time, you know, and again, something like a nice ornamental tree with good bark structure. Also, what's going to keep the garden going in the winter? Do I have enough structural plants? Evergreen planting, you know. So that would be that season that you have to think about and people do seem to forget about the winter interest, you know. And then into the spring, you know, you'd be looking at, you know, your blossom and your bulbs. The bulbs can carry you through in the garden time, for, you know, almost from January right through until June, you know, if it's well thought out, and you nearly need to break this summer into early summer and late summer, you know a lot of people find the garden can be.

Speaker 2: 23:21

It's hard to achieve that lovely planting scheme throughout the late summer, you know. So I would be very much planning a lot of my garden planting to perform from, say, june right through until September, and that would be late flowering perennials, and then for the autumn then you have to think about what's what's going to interest me then. So ornamental grasses are a great, you know one to go to, and again some of the late flowering perennials then that are going to hold on to their seed heads and they're going to look interesting in the late autumn coming into winter. So it has to be planned. You know you're better off nearly to sit down in the autumn and decide. There's 12 months of the year here. We have three to four seasons and this every month. Pick four, you choose four or five cancer shrubs or trees that are going to give me interest and you work the whole way from the autumn right around through every month of the year and you make sure you've you're covered. You know that's how you kind of get the year interest.

Speaker 1: 24:36

Yeah, that's interesting and it's a really good point, I think, is that while obviously there's four seasons, but in terms of flower and flower interest you could probably stretch that out to maybe six, because you have your winter, early spring, late spring, early summer, main summer, then late summer, autumn, yeah. So you have all these kind of windows and a lot of the time you do see peaks and troughs of interest. So you're saying, map those out as kind of six segments of the year.

Speaker 2: 25:12

Absolutely, and a lot of people find it easy to get the garden going in the spring because there's lots of bulbs, and early in the summer it's lovely. You've got a whole range of plants, aqua leeches, you have salvia, nipita, roses, and then it's just come July, august. It's like, oh my gosh, it's all kind of gone over. So if you're clever, maybe around the end of May you can do the Chelsea chop on a certain amount of the perennials and then that will create a later flush of flowering or a second flowering later on in the later summer. Yeah, so, as Christopher Lloyd said, if you can consider the planting from the latter part of the year, from June onwards, that's when give you a good planting scheme for the garden. The planting for the later part of the year, yeah for sure.

Speaker 1: 26:11

Yeah, and it's interesting when you see certain gardens and they look brilliant at a certain time of the year and you know they have been planted at a certain time of the year. But it's also, if you look at certain gardens you'll note it was planted X amount of years ago because all the plants that are in it are the plants that are in vogue at that time. I think over the last couple of years, I think there has been more of a how would I put this? It's very obvious from 10, 15 years ago that the planting was done from 10 or 15 years ago and it will look that way. But I think at the moment, over the last few years, the planting styles that people have been using the mixture of perennials, ornamental grasses, flowering shrubs, flowering trees it's got to be a little bit more timeless, I think.

Speaker 2: 27:01

Yeah, absolutely, and I think all of that type of planting creates a lovely sense of movement in the garden and there's a lot of nice like transparent planting, that like the ornamental grasses and the likes of nice calyctrums and some quite tall plants. But you know, they're nice, they create a nice kind of an area in the planting scheme. But you also have to get the structure right. You know, make sure that you have a good percentage of you know, evergreen structure in all the beds and then you can knit in this lovely naturalistic planting scheme into the beds.

Speaker 1: 27:42

You mentioned ornamental grasses a couple of times. What are your kind of go-to ornamentals at the moment?

Speaker 2: 27:49

Yeah, well, I suppose some of my favourites would be the miscanthus. I like miscanthus morning light. I like some of the steeper grasses, steeper, gigantic. It's a lovely grass. And then, you know, you have these different varieties of grasses that are other grasses that I use, like hackenaclowa, and that's a lovely ground cover grass as well. But, yeah, there's a good range of miscanthus, like calomabrostus. That's a lovely tall grass and it does well throughout autumn, keeps its structure well into the winter and you know, these grasses can give you a great, great level of interest in the garden until up to around February, john. Yeah, so you'd be cutting them back, maybe February, and you'd be relying them on bulbs and other kinds of tips to get the spring going.

Speaker 1: 28:51

Yeah, for sure, garden lighting you mentioned in the points. So garden lighting, done well, can look brilliant. What's your kind of tips around garden lighting, or what kind of garden lighting?

Speaker 2: 29:04

Not to overdo it, john. So garden lighting it's important. I suppose there's two different types of garden lighting that I would focus on and that would be like the way finding lighting. So that would be the lighting that will be important for lighting up, say, your pathways, your patio areas, maybe either side of your driveway, either side of your front door. So there are the lighting that can help you to move around the garden when you need your lights on. And then the other type of lighting is to feature lighting.

Speaker 2: 29:38

So you know if you had a lovely specimen tree and you want to see that even from inside your house at night. So it's just a little like an uplight or a spike light when you know it's awesome, lovely, it's nice to apply something like that and to see the structure of the tree. So lighting is important and you know some people are in their house and you know if you have this black abyss, you know if you're looking out of the cancy of the window and it avoids all that if you put on lighting in your garden and then you just light up something like a sculpture or a tree and you know it's just, it kind of keeps the interest going. You know, in your garden even, especially in the long winter's evening, when you know it gets dark very early.

Speaker 1: 30:32

Yeah, and that's precisely it. In the wintertime, when it gets dark early, it can feel like you're locked in and not connected at all to outside. But by lighting up that garden a little bit at that, it's a little bit of a connection, and especially if you have something like, as you said earlier, the multi-stem trees you know a nice multi-stem Jackmonte or Asrogrecium or you know something like that, and you've an uplighter on it, it really does. It means that there is still another world out there. You're not just locked into your house for the winter.

Speaker 2: 31:02

yeah, yeah, and just flash, you know. So if you have your wayfinding lighting and then if you have your feature lighting, you might want to use them at different times. So that's important in the whole design that they would be put on different circuits and that your lighting would be. You know to be able to turn on and off your lighting. That you could do that from inside the house, you know, and that you'd have. If you only want to use a feature light when you're sitting in at night, then you know you have this separate switch set up for that.

Speaker 1: 31:33

Yeah, sure, talked about trees as well and you mentioned that you know woodland is. You're quite strong on the woodland team, but we spoke about teams for our trees, for privacy. What are you kind of?

Speaker 2: 31:46

what are your go-to trees there Are you talking about, you know, standard trees or yeah, well, I think, john, you know it depends if it's actually on your garden or you, if you're in an urban garden and you know if you're surrounded by a lot of houses and you really need privacy, screening and trees for privacy, and you know. So in that situation you might be looking at putting a pleated trees into a garden for a client and you know you might probably need an evergreen. So a peached evergreen tree would be like basically a stem, a tall stem, and like a hedge on top, on top of the stems of the trees, so it's to create a spring. It might only be one or two meters above the wall, the surrounding wall of the person's garden. You know it will give them the privacy they need all year round. So I mean, this is something you can, you can choose, probably if there's a big problem with a prying needing screening.

Speaker 2: 32:50

You look at evergreen peach trees and I suppose the go tos would be crocus is a lovely one, although it's a little bit hard to get your hands on it now, and then you have Holly can be a lovely peach tree, something like Nelly Stevens and an Eli Agnes, and even some forms of privilege. Japanese privilege can provide a nice effect, yeah, and. But then if you're in the country and you're looking for privacy, I'm kind of looking at even just the deciduous trees. You know, if you have a big garden, you probably just you're going to be using your garden in spring, summer, into the autumn and you know, if you choose a good variety of nice deciduous trees that are going to come into leaf early in the spring and that in itself will do its job.

Speaker 1: 33:46

Yeah, for sure. You mentioned planting out tips. So what, what's what's? When we spoke about it again a little bit already, but you know what's your tips for, say, planting out how many per meter? Are you saying that you should be planting to get your good cover? What's, what's your? Your kind of rule, the tum around things like that.

Speaker 2: 34:07

Oh yeah. So I suppose in that, in that situation, you want repetition. You know that's important in the border, john, that you repeat, you choose a certain variety or number of certain number of plants and plant types and then to see it repeat it along the border is is good, good garden design. And to avoid, avoid it being completely uniform as well, but you'll always, it's always nicer to have a little bit of slight randomness to the, to the planting bed. You will be planting in groups. It is important to group the plants together. But yeah, so that it's. It's a little bit. You certainly use repetition, but a little bit random as well. You know that it doesn't look too.

Speaker 1: 35:02

It's a little bit artificial.

Speaker 2: 35:04

Yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 35:07

And I know it depends on the scale of the planting area. But when you're saying multiple plants, are you planting in trees? Fives?

Speaker 2: 35:17

Yeah, yeah, generally you would to create like a nice drift of planting. Yeah, so you could be planting in even bigger groups. You know some, you know you could have seven, nine, 11 plants. Yeah, so you could be the size of the planting bed and, yeah, and you pick, you might select maybe four or five different types of plants and yeah, you would generally go maybe three, five, seven and repeat them down along the border.

Speaker 1: 35:45

Yeah, yeah, and your thoughts on bamboo. So I know you mentioned that you had listened to the podcast with with Peter Stam on bamboos, but just your thoughts on bamboos generally as a garden designer. Do you use them, do you like them?

Speaker 2: 36:01

Yeah, and I actually bumped into Peter after that in power hurley nursery and, yeah, I just felt after listening to your conversation on bamboos I always liked bamboo Clients are a little bit apprehensive, worrying about them taking over the garden. But no, I like bamboo and I think bamboo looks really well if it's planted in, even in amongst ornamental grasses, in in a design. I think I love bamboo. It adds a little bit of movement in the garden sound, which is very important as well. And yeah, and not to be afraid of bamboo, I mean there are some that are runaway varieties that you would never, never consider. But if you choose kind of jump forming varieties, they are, they're, you know, they're really nice, very worthwhile.

Speaker 1: 36:58

Yeah. So just to go back to the woodland, woodland planting. Now give us an idea of woodlands. You're using a tree first and then you're probably layering down into sort of woodland shrubs, maybe woodland bulbs. Yeah, so, a combination for your woodland planting as an example.

Speaker 2: 37:12

Yeah. So even here, just out in the garden here, so my trees say I have, say, the Hawthorne right, and what I've done is beneath that I have a lovely, lovely structure of ferns and there's Bronniris, there's some lovely hydrangea, yeah, so a lot of plants that are kind of happy in a little bit of shade and they do very well in the garden here. Yeah, that's the type of style that I have, yeah.

Speaker 1: 37:43

And it's always, it's always, and I do you have in that little area. Are you able to walk through that, or is that sort of a closed off area? It's an always nice area to be able to sit in and walk through as well. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:56

So in the garden here I'd have kind of created a lot of informal little paths, you know, and the paths might be just little gravel paths going through and, yeah, just to have a little seating point along the way, and it might even be just like an old, like a log or something like that. Yeah, that actually works.

Speaker 1: 38:17

Yeah, very good, as we start to round off, maybe just tell people where they can find you or if there's any other sort of main tips that you would give someone who's looking to get started with their garden. Obviously, you've mentioned, you know, engage a garden designer early, just even for the basic information, or then, if they're at the point where they have all their orientation figured out to do a proper plan, the process is get in touch, then you have to have a meeting, a Zoom call, or what way do you do it, like, do you talk through, you know what they're looking for and then sort of come up with a plan based on that, or how does the process work?

Speaker 2: 38:56

Yeah. So basically, yeah, you either have a conversation over the phone, but sometimes I call out and just to meet the client and have a look at your garden and take it from there, so yeah. So you decide then what they want. You know they might want a full garden design or they may, and yeah, so from there, then you kind of break it up into maybe creating a concept drawing for them and that would give them an idea of how the garden should be laid out. And it might be a full garden design then, where you'd be talking about starting with the concept drawing done and then moving from there into, like, giving them another drawing or working plan drawing. That's something then that they could give to their landscape builder and then, to complete the garden, then they get a full garden planting plan. So it gives them all the plants and that can be planted up in different stages. You know, by the yeah.

Speaker 1: 39:53

Brilliant. There's been loads of really good tips in there, I think, and some nice plant combinations, but especially really good, really good tips as to how to go about things, how to think about things and how to think about your garden designs and your planting and so on. So Adele has been a really brilliant chat and wishes you the best of luck with the business which is still at a relatively young stage, I guess. But yeah, they're really, really the best to look for it. And where can people find you?

Speaker 2: 40:22

So you mentioned Instagram or how do you get in touch? Yeah, so it's Adele Theory and it's F-E-I-G-H-E-R-1, Adele Theory. And yeah, you find me on Instagram or on email.

Speaker 1: 40:35

Yeah, brilliant, and your email address is it's Adeletheorygmailcom?

Speaker 2: 40:41

Yeah, brilliant.

Speaker 1: 40:42

So Adele has been a great chat and thank you very, very much for coming on. Master, my Garden podcast.

Speaker 2: 40:46

That's great. Thanks very much, John.

Speaker 1: 40:49

So that's been this week's episode. Huge thanks to Adele for coming on. As I mentioned, some really really practical tips there, some good ideas. I suppose it makes sense of thinking about the garden as a 12-month garden and, as Adele said, drawn out those sort of maybe six seasons and then filling plants into that and then obviously making sure that they suit your garden right plant, right place and that sort of thing. But by doing that then you're creating a garden that has interest all year round, as opposed to going out and doing something and then it looking good at a certain time of the year. So you're getting that year-round interest and that's really important. We spoke about it on the podcast before, where we might be looking at plants with autumn interest, but we're doing that several months beforehand and so then when the autumn comes, you have this little surprise, this little pop of color that gives you color through the autumn and winter. So, yeah, really great tips there. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening and until the next time. Happy garden.