We were delighted to be awarded a Silver medal for our garden at this years Chelsea Flower Show

We are always amazed at how appreciative the public are and

 surely that makes it all worth while.

Now that life has got back to normal we have been working on some nice projects.

Granite paving with a darker sett edge.

Dry stone walling, raised patio and new lawn laid just before a heavy shower to water it in, perfect timing.

We also had this photo, very kindly sent to us, showing how well the lighting works that we installed in a project earlier in the year.

Thank you.

IT'S SHOW TIME

Janet and Patricia have done a wonderful job of planting and finishing the garden. All we have to do now is wait to see what the judges think and more importantly, what the public think.

Now the garden at Chelsea is really coming together, this happens in all gardens (show gardens and domestic) when the planting starts to go in. This is something to think about when planning your own garden. The planting turns the build back into a garden.

I do wish the weather could be a bit warmer as Banana trees and the maize, which has been force grown to be 1.5m tall, don't really like cold nights and hailstones.

The final version of the crack clay went in today, we ended up casting six, each slightly better that the last and so number six is now in place.

The picture below shows how the plants have softened the corrugated steel surround, while the green of their leaves contrasts in front of it.

Three long days at the show site and we have finished the construction side of the build.

Day one, building surround and mud hut latrine.

Day two, the working water pump and corrugated steel surround went in.

Day three, the "tippy tap", which is a simple water bottle tipped up by depressing the foot "pedal" so hands can be washed, is built.

Also the cracked clay in the shape of a droplet can be seen by the water pump.

 A mud render including hand prints along the front finishes the building part of the garden. It's all planting and finishing details from here.

Very exciting as it is the day before we start building the garden for this year's Chelsea Flower Show. We have now created the concrete version of cracked clay in the shape of the droplet.

This is the soft clay version that we heated to make it crack as we wished.

Then we poured the rubber solution that would set to form the mould.

Here the mould is turned out and below looks like a mountain range.

 

Then once the concrete was mixed up with the red soil of the garden and poured onto the mould, we get a concrete version of our clay.

Then we built up the garden as far as we could before putting it all on a truck to take to the show ground at 5:30am tomorrow.

So we will see what tomorrow brings, I hope it doesn't rain.

Keep an eye out for us; 

Herbert Smith Garden for WaterAid

Stand SEW4

On the Chelsea garden the thatched roof is nearly finished and we have been experimenting with different types and colours of mud render, as this will have to match the surrounding red African soil.

Red mud render on a mesh to form the walls of the mud hut.

We also started the next part of the project, which our designers sent to test us. An area of cracked soil in the shape of the Water Aid symbol, which is a water drop.

On the surface this sounds quite simple, we could soak the soil and then dry this, through heating, to make it crack into the shape of the droplet. But someone might walk on it and leave a large footprint in our work. So we figured we could make this cracked clay droplet, then pour a rubber compound over the top, this would set to form a mould. Once the clay was washed off we could make a concrete mix and then cast a concrete droplet in the correct colour. So we made some small forms.

Cut pipe former, Poured rubber mould, and a piece of concrete

that looks like cracked soil.

As you can see we have been experimenting with a small sample of the rubber compound, supplied by Bentley Advanced Materials. The piece you can see at the bottom of this picture is actually concrete and will withstand the worst of the May weather and the odd misplaced work boot. Pretty good hey!

Now we just need to do this on a larger scale.

Another great day landscaping in this amazing weather. (We really do need some rain). We finished a nice project in Radlett and then spent the afternoon learning how to build an African 'thatched' roof for our Chelsea latrine.

We used a mix of brick and reclaimed sleepers to build the retaining walls, with spiral style steps leading up to the brick path. Thank you to Martin Finney of Ayletts Nurseries for this great design.

Here the contemporary paving and wall mounted down lights can be seen. We can only hope for warm summers evenings.

Then onto an African style roof for the garden at Chelsea Flower Show.