SGD pupil Simon’s backyard – Portugal – Profitable Backyard & Way of life Design
This week we’ve a Portuguese paradise belonging to Simon & Imi – it actually wasn’t a paradise to start with although – I’ll move you over to Simon to provide the particulars…
Hello Rachel
I’ve been eager to drop you a line for some time…
As a flat dweller in Hong Kong for over 20 years, after I moved to Portugal in 2020 I had no thought the place to begin with gardening.
Whereas the builders had been busy wrecking what was within the current backyard, I took your Profitable Backyard Design Course and set about planning for one thing new.
Here’s what we began with:
I used to be happy to seek out the Quick Observe Backyard Design Course which offered a sensible method with complete supplies. As I received caught into the course, it turned simpler to find out what we favored and what we didn’t, and this helped us construct confidence in creating our personal design.
Our want listing was bold – totally different areas wherein we may chill out, socialize, play video games, a jungle, a sizzling tub, a farm… The challenges had been a back-to-front wrap-around odd-shaped backyard on a web site sloping from entrance to rear, selection of building supplies, selecting vegetation, funds and ongoing upkeep. The course helped inform our choices on all of those points when contemplating the design.
One other helpful useful resource I discovered was a cellular app: Solar’s Path. This advised me the place the sunshine would fall at totally different occasions of the day or 12 months, which helped guarantee our sundown deck wouldn’t be left within the shade on the vital time. Philp Oostenbrink’s “The Jungle Backyard” guide was additionally a superb information.
Discovering a gardener with experience on native vegetation and entry to nurseries was vital, and researching and discovering vegetation that might thrive based mostly on our USDA Plant Hardiness Zone additionally meant that we may get the vegetation that we favored if not sourced regionally.
Executing on our closing design, we cleared a lot of the backyard and began once more. We flattened the slope on the entrance and constructed a retaining wall to create two ranges. On the entrance we’ve a garden bordered with shrubs and flowers with a big patio in entrance of the home for eating.
From the previously loopy paved washing line space on the facet, we floated a pergola island on a sea of gravel with a sizzling tub deck on sleepers. We retained the badminton courtroom and put in raised mattress planters on the south-facing rear of the home, and doubtless one of many world’s solely uphill petanque courtroom occupies the shady west facet. The builders thought we had been loopy however we caught to our weapons and we’re thrilled with the result.
Rachel’s course is a superb useful resource for anybody trying to create an exquisite and practical backyard, offering a wealth of knowledge, suggestions and steerage to assist learners like us to attain their objectives. With out this course, we wouldn’t have recognized the place to begin…
Cheers
Simon
Congratulations to Simon and Imi – what a tremendous transformation! I do hope you retain us up to date because the backyard matures. Thanks a lot for sharing your design journey and outcomes with us :o)
