Your Garden Made Perfect (TV)
Discussion
What I've learned from this programme, backed up by 3 plans I've commissioned from garden designers, is that they have ZERO idea of what their designs actually cost to implement. It's the first question they ask, "what's your budget" and then demonstrate a complete inability to design within it.
The house with the elevated terrace (Episode 2 I think) their budget was £20k-£25k and it ended up being £33k, and that was without some of the design being implemented (the pergola screen was simplified and they didn't have a climbing plant support trellis down the side). Overall though, this was I thought the most successful design so far. Transformed the garden.
The £60k garden was considerably diluted from the original design and unfortunately because of this, some of the finish looked cheap. It will improve with time but it doesn't take away from the fact that the original design wasn't achievable in budget.
The minute I saw last night's design I said they were never doing that for £30k. The cladding would have looked great (given what they were working with) but was way out of reach financially. They only came under budget because again the design was diluted and they did lots of work themselves.
Overall, I am quite enjoying the series only because I've put myself on a crash course of self-taught garden design and major garden landscaping project in the last year. Successful designs can transform the appearance, utility and amenity of a garden, but they aren't cheap and the designers used so far aren't really covering themselves in glory. The programme is at least making an effort to indicate that proper garden relandscaping isn't cheap, but the designers are selling stuff that they can't deliver.
I find there's a lot of repetition in the programme making as well, they show a little montage about 5 times what the original problem is. We now skip through most of the padding.
The house with the elevated terrace (Episode 2 I think) their budget was £20k-£25k and it ended up being £33k, and that was without some of the design being implemented (the pergola screen was simplified and they didn't have a climbing plant support trellis down the side). Overall though, this was I thought the most successful design so far. Transformed the garden.
The £60k garden was considerably diluted from the original design and unfortunately because of this, some of the finish looked cheap. It will improve with time but it doesn't take away from the fact that the original design wasn't achievable in budget.
The minute I saw last night's design I said they were never doing that for £30k. The cladding would have looked great (given what they were working with) but was way out of reach financially. They only came under budget because again the design was diluted and they did lots of work themselves.
Overall, I am quite enjoying the series only because I've put myself on a crash course of self-taught garden design and major garden landscaping project in the last year. Successful designs can transform the appearance, utility and amenity of a garden, but they aren't cheap and the designers used so far aren't really covering themselves in glory. The programme is at least making an effort to indicate that proper garden relandscaping isn't cheap, but the designers are selling stuff that they can't deliver.
I find there's a lot of repetition in the programme making as well, they show a little montage about 5 times what the original problem is. We now skip through most of the padding.
I entertained this for about 15 mins last night, it wasn't great tv.
I saw the swimming pool bit there they'd put a load of work in making those horrible planters and forgotten to check for drainage first. The guy was practically in tears with the fake jeopardy, being consoled by his wife and saying how his whole World would collapse if the water wouldn't drain.
Then it went to the shady thing to sit out in, they said it was to get out of the heat of the damaging, scorching midday sun so i'm thinking where was this filmed, Barbados? No, it was in the UK somewhere.
Switched over.
I saw the swimming pool bit there they'd put a load of work in making those horrible planters and forgotten to check for drainage first. The guy was practically in tears with the fake jeopardy, being consoled by his wife and saying how his whole World would collapse if the water wouldn't drain.
Then it went to the shady thing to sit out in, they said it was to get out of the heat of the damaging, scorching midday sun so i'm thinking where was this filmed, Barbados? No, it was in the UK somewhere.
Switched over.
Edited by Evoluzione on Friday 26th February 10:54
ajap1979 said:
they’d have been better off filling it and having a garden that took advantage of the great views.
I agree. They had fantastic views, loads of sunshine, and yet chose to sit at the bottom of a 2m pit surrounded by vertical walls. Very strange. Although wonder how much it would have cost to have it filled in? Bit brave buying the house in the first place when the garden is 90% swimming pool!
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