I must admit, I do not have green fingers. When we were told we had to do the garden AND the back patio area, I was in disbelief. Two spaces?! Are you kidding me? The joke didn’t stop there. Instead of the usual 15 hours we were normally given, we had to finish this challenge in 10 hours! WTF? For the first time, Paula and I didn’t have a clear plan. We decided to take a space each, me the front yard and she the back patio, and try to come up with something fast. And then off to the nursery for some serious shopping.
FOLIAGE
I’ve always liked the idea of a sustainable garden, an “edible” garden. However, when we got to the nursery, they didn’t have any herb plants available! So I went for the next best thing – a tropical paradise filled with my favourite tropical plants and flowers like Hibiscus, Heliconia and Frangipani. Found the last two but no luck with the Hibiscus. When Jamie came to help us, he told us that we had to get plants that would help with creating privacy. He picked out this mother of a plant, which really is a baby tree.
Paula and I picked out a few more varieties of flowering plants and lush greens. We also grabbed a bunch of other things, just in case we needed them. What were they, you ask? I have absolutely no idea…..
Good start then eh?
DESIGN PROCESS
When we got back from shopping, I took a good look around the space I had to transform. I had to make this:
look something like this
Photo from askhousedesign.com
or this
Photo from askhousedesign.com
By this point, I had a slight idea of what I wanted to achieve for the garden. I toyed with the possibility of a vertical garden like this:
Photo from jamiedurie.com
and a water feature like this
Photo by Simon Kenny, from jamiedurie.com
We couldn’t find the right materials for the water feature so I skipped that. As for the vertical garden, I thought it might take too long so with Paula’s blessings, I decided to get a wooden patio built instead.
WHAT YOU DIDN’T GET TO SEE
I was cleaning a part of the house near the front door when I heard a soft thud. I opened the front door and found a tiny bird unconscious on the floor. It must have tried to fly into the house but hit the wall or glass door instead. I yelled for Paula to come grab the bird (I am too scared of handling injured animals) so that we can put it in a box and see if we can help it. After taking a closer look, I realised its head was in a weird position and Paula reckoned it had broken its’ neck. The poor baby was coming round at this point and probably still suffering from shock. It freaked out slightly and freaked out even more when I tried to feed it water. We then left it in a shaded area to let it rest more and prayed some miracle would happen and it would just fly off. And also, we had a challenge to finish.
We had a hunch that that might be a bad omen but we continued working our butts off and took our one break (unlike what you saw on the edit of the show where it looked like we were not doing a good job with our project management! Grr…) so that we could convene and give each other input on the result of the spaces so far.
MY FIRST GARDEN WITH MY BARE HANDS
I was very pleased with our front yard. It was understated and I picked a happy canary yellow for the wall to create a invigorating yet relaxing space.
Jamie had approved of our selection of plants and where they were strategically placed.
We were told to make sure we created privacy and we did with our baby tree.
I nearly broke my back trying to dig a big enough hole for this baby tree AND trying to place it in the hole. I wanted to throw myself into that hole when I was done!
We had beautiful garden lights that made our tree and plants look even more lush than they were. And I believe we were the only ones who had a birdhouse (Wish birdie had waited until we erected it). We went full on mother nature.
As for the back patio, Paula did a really good job on the chosen colour palette for the entire area. From this:
To this:
JUDGING. AND MAYBE A LITTLE BITTERNESS
Judging came and went. I just have a few questions to ask. First of all, what’s “mexican” about Dali’s garden? Secondly, Dali and The Opportunists’ gardens were really quite open so what happened to creating privacy? Which leads me to ask: why were WE penalize for following instructions then? I must admit I agree with Laurence that we probably did over think it. But we wanted to take on their advice from previous challenges and in the process, we let go of being “us”.
Overall, I really wished we all had time to sit down with the judges to get feedback on our designs in detail and discuss our executions. Being part of The Apartment has definitely fanned the passion for more knowledge on interior decorating. I want to take up formal education and an internship! Wish me luck with the decorating fairy…..
I’d like to thank all friends and fans who have shown us love and support. Thank you for believing in us. I will continue in my quest for all that glitters (whatever that means). This won’t be the last you will hear from me or of me. Onward to more adventures! This is Cynthia from Design Divas, until next time, always:
LOVE ONE ANOTHER and BE KIND TO ANIMALS
Take care now and don’t be a stranger:
PS: At this juncture, I regret to inform you that the birdie didn’t make it that day. A sad day for us indeed. RIP birdie….
Livingwithcyn 