Garden Design

Have you ever walked through a garden that has taken your breath away? A garden that you just want to be in forever? Think of a place you loved as a child – on holidays or visits to friends and family? Can you define what makes that garden so alluring?

A Sanctuary Garden is an outdoor space that draws you in and gives you a sense of peace and harmony. It nurtures your spirit and serves as a place of refuge, rejuvenation and clarity.
 
It’s a unique and special place that is a positive expression of yourself, an avenue through which you can share your creativity and choose elements that delight your passion and feed your senses. It is also a place that gives much yet requires little – a garden that sustains itself with maintenance that is enjoyable but not overwhelming. Where design and forethought have identified challenges, addressed root causes in advance and designed solutions that work.

Lately it seems that our gardens have become constricted –

• in area due to urbanization and development that offers smaller blocks and larger houses,
• in style due to the desire for larger constructed landscapes,
• in use, as we spend less and less time in the natural environment and the time we do spend is more pragmatic. Our gardens seem to need to justify their existence. They either need to add value to the property, or serve as the almost mandatory ‘entertainment area’ or be productive.

All of these elements are a vitally important part of the value of a garden, but can’t gardens, like us, just ‘be’, without having to prove their worth?

I believe that our interaction with garden spaces can be one of harmony, giving mutual nurture to all involved. Hopefully we all know the feeling of just being in a garden with no particular aim – just smelling the roses. Hopefully we have all been in a garden that soothes our soul, one that gives sanctuary, not just to us, but to birds, insects, wildlife – all living creatures that care to visit.