What one item/ feature is the most important in a garden landscape today ?

So a question for you all.

What one item or feature would you add to your  or your clients garden today?

When we started out with our then new company back in 1984 we identified designer drives, especially with ‘In & Out’ drives as the most important – sure enough within 6 months our order book stretched out into the following year, other firms descended on us for information and our advertising showed sporty cars sitting on interlocking concrete block and brick paving..Soon even the manufacturers were calling wanting to take pictures of  our drives.  Here we used stock brick paving. Although fairly soft, with somewhat irregular shapes, it kept it’s color very well

45 degree herringbone
45 degree herringbone

Here a much harder engineering quality natural brick is used to good effect.

Dri-lay natural brick drive
Dri-lay natural brick drive

The next was concrete block paving, these were very hard, initially with limited colors, and the color did fade quite quickly. They were also quite slippery in the ice.

Brindle colour drive

As our order book enlarged we started offering more expensive solutions, such as granite setts – something the Romans introduced.

This granite sett pathway is extremely hard wearing  and yet very rustic looking.
This granite sett pathway is extremely hard wearing and yet very rustic looking.

These drives were very hard wearing, color fast, strong and again a little slippery in ice. it wasn’t long before we included ‘Fish scale’ versions, these took quite a long time to set out, but looked absolutely amazing when completed.

Laying small unit sett paving of almost random size in a radiating pattern requires skill and patience....
Laying small unit sett paving of almost random size in a radiating pattern requires skill and patience….

Then these circular natural sett patterns became popular, with their sense of movement – just look at them long enough and they seem to ‘move’

What new trend, item or feature do you think will be the favorite for 2015?  We will interview the top three on our radio show  Growing Trends during the year.

Just drop us a line with your suggestions..

 

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Chris Coope

Author: Chris Coope

Born in Great Britain, Chris Dyson-Coope followed his training and passion in the field of horticulture for decades. This path led him to multiple awards for landscape design and many prestigious projects in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Chris has received 19 national awards for projects as varied as city parks, urban regeneration, playgrounds, office parks and streetscapes. He pioneered the use of designer drives in the 1980s utilizing Permacrib to create structural green walls and award-winning green roofs in London. Most recently, Dyson-Coope has nurtured his interest as an educational innovator to produce an Internet radio show (GrowingTrends.com), books on landscaping, and a series of fictional children's books that explore non-fictional themes such as sustainable agriculture, geography, and history. Convinced that the younger generation can (and must) learn from the older generation, as well as blazing new paths toward a sustainable future for a planet in deep distress from climate change and unsustainable practices, Dyson-Coope presents workable solutions in multiple formats, from books to inventions, podcasts and educational media. With several horticultural patents to his credit, the noted horticulturalist looks to the future with hope that the younger generation will grab the "torch" of innovation to develop and maintain a more sustainable world for us all. Dyson-Coope is a member of The Chartered Institute of Horticulture and serves as Director of Children's Sustainable Education for Energime University. Chris lives in Weston, Missouri, with his lovely wife, Cindi.

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