Security and Blue Sky Thinking in Russia
A wonderful blue sky greeted me this morning. Chilly and a bit windy but nothing like as dull, grey and extremely cold as yesterday. The whole garden took on a different look with the sun bringing to life the fiery autumn tones in the shrubs and trees. It's moments like these that make the career of a landscape designer so worth-while. Seeing one of your gardens maturing and your creation taking shape is hugely satisfying. Even more so when your client asks you to design the new acre that they have just bought and warns you that there is more in the pipeline!
Coming to grips with working in a new and what sometimes can be a hostile landscape and accepting the challenges thrown at you is often the garden designers' lot but many of us a raring to try something out of the ordinary. And this project has been just that. Set on the outskirts of Moscow in a promising location set in pine trees and the ubiquitous birch is this log construction dacha. It sits at the top of a hill with neighbours cheek-by-jowl to the sides and rear which means it is overlooked and surrounded by ugly 3m high fences. But its plus point is that it sits in a hectare of land bounded along the frontage by a river. The house from its numerous terraces has views down to the water's edge. OK a public path run alongside the river but not many people, just a few anglers and the local workers know about this waterside gem.
Safety measures are of great importance in this part of Moscow Region but the view has more worth for my client much to the annoyance of 'Security'. The client and I prevail: the view stays; the high solid fence along this boundary required for €protection€ is replaced by a low picket fence allowing an uninterrupted view through to the river. Nevertheless a row of tall cameras and sensors have been sprung up along what should have been the original fence line without any consultation with us and there they remain.
Any landscape architect or garden designer will come across the 'jobs-worth man' and it's our job to work around the problem. Yesterday, a drear overcast cold day, it was a request, no more of a demand from the Security guard, to cut the shrubs down to no more than 30cms. We were told to make a long pathway between the security cameras like a firebreak as they were growing and the branches getting in the way of the sensors. We planted these wonderful shrubs three years ago and a second tranche in July. Security watched us doing this with no comment and it's really not our fault that the cameras have all been placed along an old fence line and not moved the 15m to the new boundary as they had been instructed! The garden plans have been in place for years, just a little liaison and early communication could have resolved this problem easily prior to any new work taking place. But the Security, who have a great sense of their own superiority, feel that there is absolutely no need to discuss where to place cameras with the mere likes of the landscape designers, they just do it. No consideration for aesthetics or inconvenience or cost to the client. So the ultimatum was delivered: cut back the shrubs, no ifs or buts, just do it.
That was yesterday when the sky was overcast and rain was threatening when through gritted teeth, I told them that they had erected their cameras in the wrong place so move them not my plants. Today it's different, the sun is out and I can see a compromise. I smile at Security and say, €Yes we can work something out€ but it will be without decimating the plants and reducing the garden to a farce. I will redesign the path, move it a few meters, lift our plants and not damage their precious underground cables. It means more work for us, much more than moving the security cameras and sensors but at least we will be in control of the situation. Yes the Sun makes a great deal of difference.
Coming to grips with working in a new and what sometimes can be a hostile landscape and accepting the challenges thrown at you is often the garden designers' lot but many of us a raring to try something out of the ordinary. And this project has been just that. Set on the outskirts of Moscow in a promising location set in pine trees and the ubiquitous birch is this log construction dacha. It sits at the top of a hill with neighbours cheek-by-jowl to the sides and rear which means it is overlooked and surrounded by ugly 3m high fences. But its plus point is that it sits in a hectare of land bounded along the frontage by a river. The house from its numerous terraces has views down to the water's edge. OK a public path run alongside the river but not many people, just a few anglers and the local workers know about this waterside gem.
Safety measures are of great importance in this part of Moscow Region but the view has more worth for my client much to the annoyance of 'Security'. The client and I prevail: the view stays; the high solid fence along this boundary required for €protection€ is replaced by a low picket fence allowing an uninterrupted view through to the river. Nevertheless a row of tall cameras and sensors have been sprung up along what should have been the original fence line without any consultation with us and there they remain.
Any landscape architect or garden designer will come across the 'jobs-worth man' and it's our job to work around the problem. Yesterday, a drear overcast cold day, it was a request, no more of a demand from the Security guard, to cut the shrubs down to no more than 30cms. We were told to make a long pathway between the security cameras like a firebreak as they were growing and the branches getting in the way of the sensors. We planted these wonderful shrubs three years ago and a second tranche in July. Security watched us doing this with no comment and it's really not our fault that the cameras have all been placed along an old fence line and not moved the 15m to the new boundary as they had been instructed! The garden plans have been in place for years, just a little liaison and early communication could have resolved this problem easily prior to any new work taking place. But the Security, who have a great sense of their own superiority, feel that there is absolutely no need to discuss where to place cameras with the mere likes of the landscape designers, they just do it. No consideration for aesthetics or inconvenience or cost to the client. So the ultimatum was delivered: cut back the shrubs, no ifs or buts, just do it.
That was yesterday when the sky was overcast and rain was threatening when through gritted teeth, I told them that they had erected their cameras in the wrong place so move them not my plants. Today it's different, the sun is out and I can see a compromise. I smile at Security and say, €Yes we can work something out€ but it will be without decimating the plants and reducing the garden to a farce. I will redesign the path, move it a few meters, lift our plants and not damage their precious underground cables. It means more work for us, much more than moving the security cameras and sensors but at least we will be in control of the situation. Yes the Sun makes a great deal of difference.