You don't need acres of space in order to have a successful, handsome garden. You really don't. What you need is lots of good, honest practice in the growing of the plants - and a willingness to use complete trickery and deception in organising the space that they grow in. Unfortunately, few of us are able to combine these two qualities - on the one hand there are great growers of serious plants who sternly pooh-pooh any artifice, and on the other, design fanatics who live in a picture-perfect land of water-features, pergolas and patios.
Well, 32-year-old Karl Barnes (who is one half of the designerretailer duo, Classic Gardens) happens to be that rare beast - with a sensible wellie in one camp and a designer brogue in the other - a good gardener with a finelytuned aesthetic sense.
His initial training in the Botanic Gardens - along with Martin Brady, his business partner - has given him the essential potting-shed and elbows-in-themuck expertise. "We often go back to basics in our work, in site preparation, for instance, when we use a lot of manure. We use traditional methods, which are based on common sense - that's why they're so effective." And Karl's design sense is automatic and irrepressible: he can't look at a garden without wanting to rearrange it into different levels and areas to make it more stimulating.
So, when he bought a small house in a development of more than 100 homes in Bray, Co Wicklow, sight unseen, he was confident of turning the back garden into an unexpected oasis. Even when he came face to face with the cold, miserable expanse of churned clay, bounded by regulation slatted fencing, and overlooked by nine houses, he felt only a slight degree of panic. "When you buy off the plans you have no idea what you're going to get. It really hits you in the face when you first see all those houses behind you."
A challenge indeed, but a perfect opportunity to test the mettle of the Classic Gardens team - and of course with Karl being part of that team, there was no potential for client-designer misunderstanding. "When you're making a garden for someone, it is terribly important to have open communication. It is the designer's job to listen to the client and to find out as much information as possible about the activities that are going to happen in the garden. If they're going to be naked in the garden, you have to make sure that they're not going to be on view from an upstairs window."
While Karl's plans did not involve gardening in his birthday suit, it was nonetheless a priority to make the little 14 by 36 foot plot private. "And because the house was small, I wanted something that would extend it (I hate that term `outdoor room'), that would be low on maintenance - and yet be a show piece for what I do."
And, just to load a further seemingly irreconcilable requirement on to the tiny patch, it also had to be dog-proof, with the plants safe from the eager, flopping paws of Sage, the black Labrador.
The first thing was to disguise the awful, flat rectangularity of the space by introducing a number of levels and distinctly separate areas. Originally there was a sixinch step down to the garden from French windows in the living room. This unnecessary hiccup was removed by building a raised timber deck that allowed indoors and outdoors to merge seamlessly. Beyond the deck, an 18-inch deep, sunken, circular seating area was created in the centre of the garden. Having just gained six inches from the raised deck, the excavations had to go down only 12 inches. And because the foundation of the garden was rubble, mercifully there were no problems with drainage. The sunken circle was nudged as far as possible towards the sides of the garden, giving an illusion of width. A further raised area was made at the far end, making a dramatic stage for a pedestal and pot. The raw, glaring fence panels were "killed" with black stain and overlaid with turquoise trellis. Raised beds - "very accommodating when it comes to dogs: they won't jump onto them" - were further canine-proofed with elegant rope cordons.
THE formal, strictly symmetrical design was given a green emphasis with clipped box balls and pyramids. "I'm a great believer in building a strong structure - that will stand up in winter - and then covering it up with masses of plants."
And that's just what gives this garden its warmth: the rich clothing of well-chosen vegetation. Hostas, cordylines, Paulownia tom entosa (the foxglove tree) and other boldly-engineered leafshapes make robust patterns, while diascia, daisies, penstemons, lady's mantle and other dainty flowers provide the froth. And in its first year, fed with masses of good, old-fashioned manure, the garden exploded with greenery, quickly proving that it is, in fact, possible to marry traditional gardening with natty design.
Contact Karl Barnes at 01 2808071 and Martin Brady at 086 8115770