Hi all

Another question for the assembled masses of expertise out there!

I've designed a compact, minimal Japanese-influenced garden, and I'd love to include some rammed-earth walls in it. I've seen some information on how to construct and maintain them, but there doesn't seem to be a definitive method. I want to get some variation in colour within them, so will need a slight variation in the soil mix, and I suspect that I'll have to incorporate a small proportion of cement too - how does this affect the colour? Is normal concrete shuttering on a 10% batter sufficient? They will need capping with ridge tiles - how are these secured? Do you include reinforcing rods or not? What surface treatment is required, if any? I want them to last for a long time - and I know that there are some in Japanese temples which are hundreds of years old, so it must be possible, even in our climate.

As ever, thoughts and exeriences gratefully received!

Mark

I have a question!

I have long been looking at charging more in the style of landscape architects for larger projects: ie, charging my fee as a percentage of total completion sum, rather than as a lump sum payable on completion of various stages of works. I think that for longer projects it gives more flexibility: you can just work away on everything that the client needs doing without constantly recalculating whether each bit of work is already paid for or included in a previous sum, and having to constantly send new invoices to the client for, I don't know, renegotiating a tender action or sourcing a particular stone finish or something. I'd much rather just accept all these works as my responsibility knowing I'm being paid for all of them from the start. And I think it actually pays more in the long run too!

I've just had a proposal for a large and probably quite long-term garden project accepted at 7.5% of total certificated completion sum. I've had a good deposit, but the question is this: at which trigger points should I require further payments? I'm obviously requiring payment in advance of the final contract sum, which I don't know yet, and the completion certificate should just make up the final difference - but I can't wait until the end of the project to suddenly get paid thousands, my cash flow won't stand that. So, at what points do I require payment, and how much do I require?

Has anyone had any exerience of clients trying to avoid payment on this principle, too? It would be relatively easy for a client to disguise the size of his payments to the contractor, thus reducing my fee. I'm only acting as the client's agent to the contractor, not as project manager, so I won't necessarily see all the bills. I think that trust between the designer and the client is a basic necessity but I can understand the temptation. Are there any tricks of the trade to avoid this? Is it just a matter of really good communication with the contractor?

Any thoughts and experiences gratefully received!

Mark

Quick thoughts: Malvern Spring Show: generally awful, amateur efforts - the gold winners were the notable exceptions, but I'm afraid that none of them would have got anything like a gold at Chelsea (or Hampton Court, come to that). It's all very well for me to criticise, I've never done one - but I will, when an appropriate opportunity comes through. I hope that I've learned some lessons from detailed observation.

Chelsea, however: standard generally excellent, but a bit safe? Dreamy, tranquil, green and white planting is guaranteed to hit the zeitgeist dead on. I'm always interested in the synchronicity between the gardens - not just in the planting, but the hard landscaping was very similar in many cases too: so much stacked stone walls, pale-coloured, matt finish timber, dull oxidised metal, loads of slender Flemish clay brick pavers, curtains of water partially obscuring detail behind, and so on. How does this happen every year? Was there a bloke selling job lots of white foxgloves and salvias? It's really interesting how designers pick up on the same trends so universally.

I preferred the small gardens to most of the show gardens - the front gardens in the urban category were excellent - did exactly what they said on the tin, treated a difficult, exposed space with sensitivity and care to produce practical and beautiful spaces. I liked the buried Chinese temple show garden too - real originality there, garden-as-archaeological-excavation.

Be interested in any other thoughts?

I said I'd let you know how I got on last time: of the three gardens I quoted for last time, I've been asked to design two. Good news! They could hardly be more different briefs; while both are modern estate houses, the one brief is for a minimal Oriental garden with a reflective pool, raised deck walkway, raked gravel, subtle lighting effects and signature minimal planting, while the other is for a plant-rich cottagey front-and-back garden with a brick lean-to sheddy thing in reclaim materials, brick paving and a profusion of colourful planting in raised beds.

I'm really happy to take on both, as it happens. They're smallish gardens, so no dramas about the surveys. Both are inward-looking, so the detailed framing of a view isn't an issue either. Instead, I can create two secluded, restful, beautiful living spaces - which in the end will be quite similar in functional use and utterly different in aesthetic. Looking forward to them both.

Three new clients to go and see next week, lucky me. All not too far away as well, so I don't have to spend hours and hours in the car. Busy time coming up!

I like the time before I go and see new clients. I only have the brief information that we've discussed on the phone; in this case, two town gardens requiring a contemporary, minimal touch including water and a modernish but cottagey house needing a garden to complement it. My mind is already mulling over options and suggestions. I won't pre-empt anything until I've had a really good chat with the clients, though: that would be a disaster. No preconceptions here!

I'm lucky that I can always see potential solutions to the design issues before I leave the garden on the first visit. I can think in three dimensions (four, if you count time) and this is a really useful gift. Mind you, I can't always then get the picture in my mind onto the paper! That's the bit that has me waking up at four in the morning, tearing my hair out and kicking the dog. I've never yet failed to find a way round it, though.

I'll let you know how I get on!

... in for a penny, as they say.

I'm always in the market for more ways to promote my business and to get as much information as possible about who and what are out there - we live in an information age!

I'm passionate about good design, whether it's in architecture, product design, graphics, or, indeed, gardens. I'm actually not that mad a gardener - I enjoy it, sure, but I'm not completely addicted to maintaining the thing. Many garden designers come at the profession through a love of gardening; I came at it through a love of design so perhaps if you're looking for a garden as a space to live in and to use for leisure rather than as a burden, something to look after, I'm your man.

Give me a ring, no obligation, and I'll talk you through it. I'm quite friendly!

Look forward to hearing from you.