One of the advantages of new technologies these days is that they allow you to be "virtually" everywhere. It is great to know people from around the globe who share the passion for gardens, mostly thanks to social networks like twitter or facebook but through blogs like this one or professional forums too.
Everyone can eventually know about your work and what you do at anytime, which is actually both, scary and exciting at the same time if you think your potential market is "the world".
This virtuality is what in the last few weeks, has allowed me to work in the design of a planting plan for a garden that I have never visited. It all began meeting the client at the Grand Designs Live Show in London, where I had the opportunity to work for a couple of days at the Garden Design Studio with James Alexander-Sinclair.
The clients, a middle age couple living in West Sussex, were keen on introducing a bit of colour in their garden, with the addition of new beds and borders to the existing lawn area.
They liked my initial ideas and a few days later, they contacted me to prepare a complete planting plan for their garden. Just a couple of emails were needed to get all the information, including their aspirations for the garden, preferred plants and colours and even a scaled 2D plan with some more pictures of the site.
So that was it really. If the client gives you all the information you need, it is easier to achieve a great result. It was time then to make a selection of plants suitable for dry soil, choose my colour palette and finally give structure and all year round interest to the new proposed borders.
That is the final result, including general gardening advice, a basic maintenance guide for the selected plants and an indication of the approximate costs to purchase these plants. All the information the client wanted without the hassle of site surveys and meetings to fit in an always busy agenda.
What do you think? Do you like it?
Luis, interesting blog post. Really like the fact that you've done a plan for someone who's garden you've not had a chance to visit. And that you've done such a good job with it too! Really like how it's presented, and the photo sheet too. Very nice.
ReplyDeleteThank you Tracy! Very much appreciated! It really was a bit of a challenge, but clients were really happy with the final result. Shame the didn't go for the design of the whole garden though! ;)
ReplyDeleteAwesome,Great that you incorporate it your ideas online so that many can inspire and do lots of creative stuff for their own garden.Keep posting.Thanks.
ReplyDeleteGood post, with clear explanations and factual examples. It outlines what you do and how you go about business clearly . This is what professional communications should be about. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you guys! It really is great that you find posts like this one useful. That's one of the purposes of this blog.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward for more comments on forthcoming posts!! ;)
It's really an appreciable design.... I love the fact you mention about the virtual advice to the clients. This really help the clients in designing their garden by own and also the several other uses consists that the designers of different ethics around the globe can easily communicate with each other to share each others expertise and experience.
ReplyDeleteGarden Design London