Overview 3

This next garden was created in March of this year, near the village of Mullion on the lovely Lizard peninsula.

This job involved the use of sleepers as you will see with the next images.....

And after digging out the trenches, we set about cutting the sleepers by hand with jacksaws....a very tiresome job, going through at least 4 saws!!

We concreted the sleepers in place and used metal ties thereby joining one to another. The cup of tea was most welcome too!

In the main we were lucky with the weather too, coming out of the very cold winter that we had, it was nice to work in the warming spring sunshine.

Now our work was taking shape, the idea was to cut the sleepers at differing heights, as seen here this brings light and shadow into play.

Plus the use of water brings another element into the equation, with decorative gravel over the banked up soil giving a great view from the house.

With most of the plants in the ground we are nearly there......

The large stone in the foreground made such a wonderful compliment to the beach cobbles.

Below we can see how the grass on the right (Stipa tenuissima), looks with the low spring light levels.

We used Agave's, Restio's, grasses, and drought tolerant and coastal plants.

How one can enjoy the textures and forms and the colours and light, movement and sounds in an ever changing garden :-)

Overview 2

Phormium tenax and a beautiful blue sky!!

These pictures below show a project carried out on a courtyard in early 2006. The brief was simple....To lay over a crumbling tarmac driveway, recycled granite setts and granite cobblestones from the local quarry.

We found that by using a combination of cobbles around the edges and the setts for the driveway, that once completed a softer look was acheived.

Also by using recycled setts, it had the feel of a weathered look!

A lovely job that allowed us to be both freeflowing and creative, a pleasure to work on.

Overview 1

These gardens shown here in the 'Overview' section show a small selection of work carried out since 2005 in the Cornwall area.

These first images are from the grounds of a hotel in the Falmouth area.

We had a brief to beautify the areas outside some of the south facing rooms.

This involved creating a turfed area, alongside the existing plantings.

It also involved the use of reclaimed sleepers, with granite stone chippings for the pathway and step treads, leading to the individual rooms.

And finally, separating each room with some rustic planters, made from half round stakes and planted with Griselinia littoralis, an excellent evergreen windbreak.

a blog about a logo

We are currently having our logo redesigned, with some business cards and also some postcards to hand out. We also renamed our business, before we were known as Elysian Landscapes.
The idea then, was to come up with an appropriate logo that reflects what we are about as people as well as capturing our creative side.

Well, surrounded by sea here in Cornwall ,you do not have to travel very far before you come across this type of image....but there is a twist!!!!!
We wanted to capture the idea of an unfurling fern frond, some of you may say, 'What?!! No way', but be assured look at the frond of say an unfurling Cyathea or Dicksonia, (Tree Ferns........ ideal coz they may well be at head height and therefore easy to view!!!) and you will see what we mean, in fact that unfurling frond is worthy of a couple of names too...... 'Fiddlehead' or 'Crozier'.

There is a large element of interest/obsession/passion from us both regarding surfing and it follows that the wave shape is part of that. One becomes an appreciator of a fine wave, a connoisseur if you will, (although perhaps we would need to travel, surf and appreciate more waves than you would see in lovely old Cornwall!??)
But any way on the right hand side of the logo, the dots which are linked to the 'Fiddlehead' concept, could in fact be the results of a very light offshore breeze, something which many wave riders would understand, look for and delight at, this offshore breeze would produce spray and hold up the wave. The inside of the wave by surfers is often called a 'Barrel'. Sometimes you hear of 'barrelling waves'.
I don't believe however that the two very different areas should merge regarding terminology. In fact if I heard a friend saying something like: 'I say, that wave is fiddleheading perfectly' I may have to think hard about the proper use of the English language....know what I mean?!!!! 
So, the logo, we hope you like it.......... More info on historic and current work by us with pictures as well is to follow and there may also be postings about life in Cornwall, surfing and other interests we have.
In fact I have a fine photographic collection of waves that I, (Glynn) have taken over the years, and now that I think about it they are in various parts of the world too...as well as Cornwall :-)

Introduction

Hello and welcome to our site.
First of all let me introuduce you to ourselves, as mentioned in the About us column we are Glynn Wrapson and Keven Doidge.
These blogs will be about our work, interests and stories relating to same. 
I have been in the horticultural industry even before leaving school. This is because my father was a landscape gardener, (he is now retired) and he used to take me to work with him during the summer holidays, this also from a very young age, indeed I remember being taken to a project in Sussex (where I originally hail from) and I guess I must have been quite young as I took my buggy/go cart to this site. It was in fact the soon to be completed by-pass road on the A27 (Glyndebourne area) and whilst he was planting and seeding the embankment I was giving the empty section of road it's first use!!!
Anyway I soon learnt that by pushing the odd wheelbarrow of turf that my dad would sing my praises and give me a bit of pocket money! This developed into a school holiday kind of thing and soon my descision of what to do when I left school was easily made.
Upon leaving school I attended college to do a City and Guilds in Amenity and Decorative Horticulture for about 3 years. Then after a few years landscaping with dad I developed a real passion for plants and so my dad developed within his company a 'garden maintenance' section.
In the late 80's they moved to Cornwall and I stayed in Sussex gardening until I moved down to North Cornwall to again work for my dad in 1995.
I decided to go back to college in 2002 where I did a full time 2 year Foundation Degree course in Garden Design and Plantsmanship. This included for a few weeks working in the National Botanical Gardens of Cuba in Havanna. After leaving college I went on to run a succesful plant nursery with my then partner. This contained such an amazing array of plants that I further developed my passion for plants and would often dream of plant studying expeditions to temperate zones of the world.
During this period Keven and I started our landscaping company, at the time called Elysian Landscapes, we travelled around Cornwall on many projects and now we have decided to rename the company as you see on this site.
A bit about Keven now, he is a very creative and talented person who has worked in the building industry, favouring restoration projects and the landscape industry. He was born in Millbrook in South East Cornwall, where he also worked until moving to Falmouth in 2000.
Over the years  he has developed a passion for wood, and has spent many years carving and sculpting wood, many of which have been installed in landscape and community landscape projects. He also spent time creating bespoke furniture.
So we can bring to projects an array of skills, knowledge and experience, as well as our likeable natures and honest work ethic!!