Analyzing your site

Here is a good example of the importance of analyzing the conditions of a site before detemining a design.  This apartment building had a badly designed patio area.  The area has no shade from about 10 AM until evening.  On the other side of the fence is the lane and two apartment buildings.  Across the lawn, about 40' away, is the south side of a ten storey concrete apartment building.  Directly facing this patio at ground level are large windowed bedrooms of a suite, without privacy screening.  In fact, we were the only people who ever sat in the two chairs provided on the patio.

Before

As with many apartment buildings, the garden area is actually a rooftop garden, over the parkade. Unfortunately, the original landscape design allowed for very little soil, and the depth of the soil is 4"- 7".  The design did not seem to have included drainage.  Most of the garden is a bog.




The surface of the patio is mud covered with a thin layer of non-compactible gravel. The entrance to the patio is either across the boggy lawn, or slaloming through the half barrels sunk into the patio surface.  The arbour built over the patio remains empty because there is nowhere to grow vines around the base of the arbour posts.

In summary, we have a shadeless, full sun, uneven surfaced, viewless patio.  Attempts have been made to green the patio with herbs and Roses and Hypericum:  random plantings in random containers.

Install Day, April 2012

We, The Cultivated Gardeners, were asked to design an alternative to the unused patio.  

After

Our first consideration was compiling a list of full sun bog plants.  Secondly, we removed the rocks and mud, and replaced that with healthy, organic soil.  Carpenters fixing the fence had already removed the arbour.  Then we created a design using complementary plants, and focusing on textures, repetition, and all season interest.  We also threw in some blueberries and garlic, and a tomato plant grew from the compost in the soil mix.

April 2013

Ironically, within months of us installing this new garden, the strata owners wanted a seating area to enjoy their beautiful garden.