COLUMNIST: ANDY PEASGOOD
The founding ideas of the garden remain unchanged: a place for my family and I to enjoy, a space to grow food and some of my favourite perennial plants, but also a haven for local wildlife. As time has passed, I have become increasingly interested in the design elements of gardens and the more I think about it, I realise that the seeds of these thoughts were sown long ago.
Back in 2010, as an eager young professional dancer, I joined Scottish Ballet, Scotland’s national ballet company. Within my first year, an organisation that sponsors the retraining of dancers for a second career, came to deliver a presentation and asked “Have you thought about what you will do after your professional performance career?” My immediate reaction was to think that this was too early to be thinking about career transitions as I had barely begun my own, however, this was naive as a single injury could finish a performance career in a heartbeat. I simply said, “Garden design”.
Where did this come from? Was it a combination of living in the middle of Richmond Park surrounded by nature during my training years and regularly visiting Kew Gardens and the Isabella Plantation during weekends? Could it have stemmed from a lifetime surrounded by design in a theatrical environment? All I knew is that I adored the outside world, enjoyed design, and was motivated to create.
A decade on and gardening has become a staple of my life outside of professional performance. It provides me another option to be creative in places where I had felt creatively held back at work. It allows my emotions space to move around, avoiding suppression.
Fast forward another few years and here I am, happily retired from professional performing and gratefully developing my career in design and horticulture. I have some very enjoyable external plant-based work but a lot of my focus still remains on my approach to my new build garden, on what can be achieved in a green space with a little research and confidence.
I soon decided it was time to develop further and to make my design education formal. After much research I enrolled in a Post Graduate Diploma in Garden Design from the British Academy of Garden Design. What I have learnt so far has been nothing short of incredible and enjoyable, enabling me to make a few changes to the garden as well as influence future projects. The following developments stand out:
Being on a new build property I initially wanted to move away from the colours on the development. The roofs are grey/red tiled, white rendered houses, grey/red mono-block, and grey concrete slabs. When I added stone chipping (gravel) to the garden spaces I went with a Cotswold stone colour, and whilst it looked lovely, it did feel out of place in the surrounding environment. The eye did not have an easy transition when moving from one area to another and as such, it did not encourage calm.
After a little research, I found a lovely chipping in a dove grey colour. Not dull in grey but subtle and warm.
Once delivered and laid out over the previous chipping, it all made sense. The transition felt at ease, the spaces were cohesive within the surrounding environment and the chipping itself softened the edges of the angular new build development.
The grey felt on the summer house roof felt a little dull and weighed down the appeal of the summer house. After installing a black tile effect roof it now feels part of the landscape, a sleek style that has a contemporary feel but softened by the timber of the summer house.
Both these changes have made a positive impact, and the space is starting to feel far more cohesive. There is a real sense of excitement now as to what the months ahead will bring, both in study and in the garden.
Andy Peasgood is a keen gardener who enjoys design, plant combinations, and a ‘hands on’ approach to projects, as he shares the development of his garden.
A former Principal Dancer with Scottish Ballet and now a professional teacher and coach in vocational classical ballet training, Andy is most recently, a garden design student.
Follow more of Andy’s gardening journey on Instagram.