Isle of Wight Garden Gallery 31 by Tim Brayford Landscapes

Tim Brayford Landscapes were established in 1980 and we are British Association of Landscape Industries National Award Winners for Garden Design & Construction. We have a wide experience of landscaping works ranging from the initial ideas through to making gardens and their aftercare.

We recommend an initial verbal consultation and report preparatory to forwarding costings for your project, both for the building of entirely new gardens or for the addition of individual features to a well established one. Typically this may take the form of tree, shrub & herbaceous border planting, wildlife gardens & ponds, wildflower meadows, lawn seeding & turfing, raised beds, water gardens & pools,installation of irrigation systems, ground shaping & cultivation. We also undertake specialist maintenance work such as fruit, shrub & rose pruning.

To learn more about what we have to offer please visit our website, email timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or call 07890869918

Peat Free Gardening by Tim Brayford Landscapes Isle of Wight

A natural peat bog, according to the IUCN peatlands store 30% of global carbon

Peat has long been used within the horticultural industry both as a growing medium used in composts and as a soil conditioner. It is a natural product composed of slowly decaying plant material built up over many thousands of years.

It is harvested primarily from lowland raised peat bogs, an increasingly endangered form of habitat along with the flora and fauna that it supports. But this is not all, it efficiently locks up atmospheric CO2 forming an effective and vital buffer against climate change.

Modern peat harvesting destroys the original peat bog

Fortunately advances in recycling and composting technology has rendered the use of peat redundant for most conventional gardening purposes. Peat free compost is made up mainly from recycled waste organic material such as bark, sawdust, coir, paper etc. blended with inorganic materials such as sand , grit or perlite, with fertiliser added as appropriate.

Ways to avoid using peat:-

Only purchase composts specifically labelled as being “Peat Free”

Use recycled garden waste as a soil improver and conditioner. Traditionally gardeners have done this for themselves by constructing their own compost heap, high quality recycled composts are also available from many municipal authorities

Source plants from nurseries and garden centres that have peat free policies

Plant only what will already grow in your existing soil without adding peat

Raised peat bog flora like this Bog Cranberry will be destroyed by harvesting

***********It is the policy of Tim Brayford Landscapes to avoid using peat and peat based products***********

To learn more about our landscaping projects please visit our website, email timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or call 07890869918

Isle of Wight Garden Gallery 30 by Tim Brayford Landscapes

To learn more about what we have to offer please visit our website, email timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or call 07890869918

Garden Ideas by Tim Brayford Landscapes Isle of Wight

Tim Brayford Landscapes – A tranquil seating area amongst herbs & grape vines

Garden Ideas

Your initial thoughts

Start by assessing your future needs for your garden, who is going to use it and for what purpose. Does it need dividing up into tranquil areas for more mature family members or perhaps play areas for children or pets, do you want to attract wildlife like garden birds ? And what about maintenance, do you simply want areas of grass or do you have the time and skills to develop the classical country house borders of mixed shrubs and herbaceous plants?

Develop a theme

Thinking in terms of the overall look if your house is of a striking contemporary design you may find that architectural plants with bold foliage and areas of gravel and paving in finely dressed stone or concrete may be suitable, whereas if you live in a traditional country cottage fragrant honeysuckles and roses with winding paths in brick or roughly hewn paving slabs are preferable.

What to do next

Keep a notebook of your initial thoughts and perhaps do a rough sketch as well. Take a walk around your garden, taking a hard look at things that are past their best. Are paving slabs loose or broken, does the pond leak, are existing plants to your liking, over-mature or gappy? Are the existing features where you would like them to be, are there views that can beneficially be opened up or things that require hiding from view? These are the sort of questions that you need to ask yourself.

Tim Brayford Landscapes – The blank canvas, after the initial clearance of the concreted over surface!

Marking Out

The next stage is to get out into your garden and mark out what you intend to do, some sticks and string are useful or the kind of marker paint that is used on building sites. This is available in a variety of colours, you can use a different one for paving, ponds, planting, or lawns etc. Take care to allow plenty of width for paths, space for seating on paved areas and lawns if required, and allow plenty of space for plants to grow and mature into. Take a few photos from different angles of what you have marked out for future reference.

Take time to reflect

Now refer back to the notes that you made earlier, is what you wish to do practical, does it fit the available space, can it be achieved and is it possible within your budget? Do any of the features need moving around from where you initially placed them, do others need to be added or even discarded? Again, these are the kind of questions that you need to be asking yourself. If at this stage your thoughts have turned into a bit of a fog you may benefit from some advice from a professional garden designer, otherwise you are now ready to proceed to with your project.

To learn more about what Tim Brayford Landscapes have to offer please visit our website, email us timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or call 07890869918

Isle of Wight Garden Gallery 29 by Tim Brayford Landscapes

To learn more about what we have to offer please visit our website, email timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or call 07890869918

The Wildlife Pond by Tim Brayford Landscapes Isle of Wight

The trouble with having a wildlife pond is that I supposedly ‘waste’ a great deal of time watching it. It is the most fascinating habitat in the whole garden. I have had mine for about five years now and the first inhabitants, pond skaters, arrived within an hour of it filling up. Since then we have had Damsel flies, Dragon flies, Water Boatmen and lots of other unidentified little bugs that skitter and wriggle about in its depths. The icing on the cake came last week when my 8 year old (another essential ingredient for ponds by the way!) dipped his net in and found a newt. That’s the thing about ponds, if you get it right you don’t have to stock it, it stocks itself.

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Dragonfly

So what makes a good wildlife pond? Firstly it must be deep enough in the middle for creatures to overwinter successfully, mine is about three feet deep with a shallower shelf around the edge. I used a butyl liner with the correct padding underneath, it pays to get this bit right as a hole in the liner is an expensive mistake to rectify. The edges have a gentle slope and because mine abuts the lawn I laid turf over the edge to hide the liner. I then did something that a lot of gardeners would hold their hands up in horror at, I chucked some clay soil (devoid of stones) into the bottom. Well, those newts have to have something to spuddle about in, don’t they?

Tim Brayford Landscapes – Bee attracted to wildlife pond

Be choosy about the plants you want to have in your pond. I chose native plants as far as possible, although I did succumb to a small, white waterlily . My favourites are Watermint, Brooklime and Water Forget-me-not. Avoid really rampant growers such as the Bull rush and Canadian Pondweed in your pond as these will soon choke it. I made use of the wet clay soil behind my pond to plant yellow Iris as well as Purple Lythrum and Meadowsweet. I planted the pond lily in a pot but everything else I anchored under the turf edge or weighed them down in bunches on the shallow shelf to do their own thing.

You can get as artistic as you like with decorating the outer edges to attract residents and visitors. I chose a couple of semi-rotten large branches to drape over the back edge and dip right into the water and these have been a great hit with all types of birds as bathing and drinking perches. Insects love the flowering plants around the outside and in winter finches feast on the seed heads.

Damsel flies are attracted to the wildlife pond

My pond is never going to be the tidiest and, yes, I do get some duckweed and blanketweed (a revelation in itself when you see what takes up residence in it) but it most certainly is one of the busiest.

And don’t forget that essential item a Garden Seat!

To learn more about what we have to offer please visit our website, email timbrayfordlandscapes@gmail.com or call 07890869918