A Bigger splash – weeks ten and eleven – story of a swimming pond for a garden designer

 
As I write the words ‘weeks ten and eleven’ I can’t quite believe that it has been that long, despite the fact that I knew this process would take at least 2-3months. Despite this, the progress in the last couple of weeks has been phenomenal. Our beautiful Pennant paving went down this week, with a set of steps, the dramatic curved path and a counter-sweeping curve of stepping stones through the lawn. The path is a thing of beauty.
However, the more Vicky and I looked at it, the more we thought that the line of it through the

lawn was not quite right. The idea for the stepping stone part of the path came from Glyn, our hardscape foreman (as opposed to Glen, our hard landscape manager, which is confusing for everyone). There’s a frustrated designer inside everyone. It was a great idea, and one which we latched on to straightaway; so much so that we didn’t draw anything out first (is that an alarm bell I hear ringing?). So in this morning’s drizzle, I said to Glyn that we were going to have to relay the 14, 110kg stones in a slightly different line. “You are winding me up, aren’t you?” was his not unexpected reaction. We just knew that if we didn’t re-lay them, we would be looking out of the window for the next twenty-five years regretting it. He should have expected it really, working for a couple of designers!
The irony of this was not lost on me. I have spent the last two or three days (in between other stuff) writing my presentation to the SGD conference in London on Saturday. In it I underlined the importance of good communication, a clear set of drawings and specifications, communicating with the site staff etc. etc. Alright, I know, calm down at the back there. So I write this blog to say that listening to the client is also important! When they change their mind, accept with good grace (do you think I got away with that?)
 

We decided fairly early on to have a ‘shallow end’ in the pool. Rather than rake the bottom of the pool, we have achieved this by building a timber deck which will sit below water, giving us a depth of about 1.2m for the first 4.5m or so of one end. The frame timber is made up of English larch (from my new friends at Eco Choice) which does not leak any nasties into the water. The deck itself is made from reclaimed teak. Timber of course floats, so it may seem a bit counter-intuitive building an underwater deck. Once the wood becomes saturated (which takes quite a while) it is not nearly so buoyant, with the teak becoming heavy enough to sink. However, until then, it must be weighted down with concrete blocks, although our calculations as to how many are so unsure that we just decided in the end on ‘a lot’. We will fill the pool up slowly and see whether the deck floats. It’s called the scientific method – reaching a provable result through a controlled experiment (otherwise known as trial and error).
In the almost final fortnight (apart from re-laying slabs), the lawn will go down, the sun deck will go into place and the pool will get filled and planted!