The Garden

Since I was watching the history of British gardening on TV last night, I thought it might be time to talk a little about the space outside the house. When we moved in, there was a patio, large bay tree, one ornamental shrub and a small shed all in the back garden. Previous to that we had been in a one-bedroom flat so this was our first garden.

The first task was to find out what was there, then to tool up for planting, pruning and mowing. Within a few weeks of moving in the shrub fell over and killed off half the lawn (which was patchy anyway - this was the middle of winter). The rear fence was also covered in ivy which ran all the way along the boundary to the house. Having had the previous episode with root growth through the house walls, I decided to embark on some radical pruning. This took about 3 days and filled around 6 bags with Ivy! At this point I found that the ivy was largely responsible for holding up the garden fence.

Once spring arrived it was time to get the lawn sorted. I decided that this would be done with seed and proceeded to double dig the existing lawn area (2 days). This exposed all sorts of roots and builder's rubble just below the surface. We removed the worst of this and added topsoil to the thinnest areas then prepared a compost and sand mix about 2 inches thick over the whole lawn. After seeding and tamping the area down it had to be watered every day for around 3 weeks, at which point grass shoots started to appear. It also became apparent that the local pigeons had had at least a 3rd of the seed, so I did all this twice and remembered to net the lawn the 2nd time!

The bay tree was about 6m tall when we moved in and then proceeded to add about another 4m over the next 4 years. In the end I resorted to getting a tree surgeon out to give it a thorough pruning. There is a reason that most people grow these in pots or planters and that is that these things are like triffids bent on world domination! Every year it sprouts shoots and saplings all over the garden, however it does provide evergreen shade and lots of bayleaves (although I think the amount of stews and soups needed to use these up could feed half of London). It also stops rain getting at the plants and lawn below it so there is a need to actively water that part of the garden regularly.

Once this was sorted out it was time to consider the planting beds. I had actually done quite a bit of landscape work as an architect, so I had a much better idea of what I wanted to add and where. The main thing is to try and picture what the plants will look like in 2 or 3 years time, and also allow for how they change seasonally. So the main structure was done with evergeen shrubs (preferably flowering) and in between this I went for maples and birch which don't completely block out the sun in summer (allowing bedding plants to grow underneath) and provide good colour all year (see picture above). More recently I've added some fruit trees and shifted some of the original planting around (the maples didn't like direct sun - leafburn).

So what's left to do? Well, the existing garden is actually on a hill and the patio is more or less at finished internal floor level with the inevitable pea-gravel to ensure that the damp drains away from the house walls. The native base soil is clay and over time the slurry fills up the gravel giving it the drainage properties of concrete. So the main thing is to fix the levels so that the gravel isn't necessary. This means a level change of around 225mm somewhere mid-slope, and some channel drainage to deal with the patio run-off. At the same time the planting beds near the house could do with being bigger, and there is a definite need for more storage (new sheds and outdoor cupboards for pots, BBQs etc).

Oh, and did I mention herbs? Lots of these all over the place (mostly in pots but some in the beds). So far the collection includes marjoram, origano, tarragon, mint, sage, thyme, rosemary, lovage, garlic and chives with a seasonal planting of basil, parsley and coriander. I'll talk more about sheds later on when I've figured out what they'll be!

What the Victorians Didn't Do for Us - Part 5

Windows.

Originally, the windows would have been timber sash windows with the frames rebated into the brickwork. Like most Victorian joinery these would have been painted with a lead-based gloss paint - most likely white. The rebates (the inner opening is stepped back half a brick and the frame partly concealed by half a brick on the outside) help to protect the timber from weather exposure, and also hide the bulk of the boxed frame containing the pulleys and weights for the sashes. The openings have a stone sub-cill which casts water away from the window and the brickwork immediately around it - in this case these have been painted white. At the back of the house the openings are capped by brick arches in red brick. To the front there are stone arches above the windows treated similarly to the cills.

Sometime in the mid-80s the timber windows on our house were replaced by the previous owner with UPVC windows like the one in the picture above. Typically these have a maximum design life of around 20 years, and after that they begin to fail. In our case the ironmongery has started to fall off (handles are rivetted through the plastic and when these fail they can't be replaced), the glazing panel seals are deteriorating and some of the opening mechanisms have buckled (not particularly strong in high winds!). So one of the major tasks and expenses of doing the house up will be replacing all of these.

Interestingly these windows have much smaller frame sections than the originals would have had. So the original internal openings must have been boxed out for the new windows to sit properly in the external openings. Having tried fixing curtain rails etc internally I think that this has probably been done with plasterboard and newspaper! So another task once work begins is to determine exactly what has been done around the openings internally.

Of course replacement timber sash windows are expensive and are prone to the same problems that the original windows would have had leading to their replacement. In terms of the current regulations, the main issues are insulation, solar gain, ventilation and maintenance. The UPVC windows are awning casements (which tend to catch the wind!) and double-glazed. These days even this would not pass muster for Building Control, and better glazing, possibly with better frames would be necessary.

My own preference is to return to sash windows. Party this is on aesthetic grounds, but also because I think that ventilation is much better controlled with them than using trickle vents.
Getting a timber frame that will take double glazing means beefing up the frames for the extra depth, so these will always appear slightly bulkier than the Victorian originals which were single glazed with putty. The other alternative is to resort to UPVC or metal sashes or composite timber windows.

UPVC is still the cheapest option, but the sections are bulkier and it always looks like, well, plastic. Metal is problematic because it is a poor insulator. Composite timber windows are a good compromise, being virtually maintenance free, but more expensive than UPVC. These are timber windows with seals and thermal breaks which are clad in coated aluminium externally. If installed properly they have a long design life, and still give the feel of a timber window without the expense of repainting/ restaining every 2-3 years which a normal timber window would need. In my experience almost no-one bothers repainting until it is necessary (paint is falling off or the timber is rotting), by which stage the timber needs repairing as well.

While looking around at windows I did a quick count on our street. Out of roughly 100 houses nearby, about 90% had gone for the cheap UPVC option - in most cases doing away with sashes altogether. Within this there were virually no repeats, which reflects the number of manufacturers out there, I guess. They were also all uniformly plastic white. A couple had timber framed windows that were not sashes - these were probably installed in the 1950s, and about 2 had original sashes or very close reproductions of these. Strangely enough, when we moved here we looked at another property on the same street which had remained untouched since the 1930s. This one had the origial sashes, which were painted a dirty yellow/cream colour. These have now gone and the house has been renovated.

Anyway, getting back to our windows, my current thinking is to go with timber composite frames. These have a good thermal performance, negligable maintenance, can be made as sashes with glazing bars and house the latest thinking in double-glazing (special glasses with inert gas filling the cavity between panes). The other advantage that these have is that they are dimensionally stable - timber windows can warp and stick when their moisture content varies. This also helps with draft-proofing. The Scandinavians and Americans seem to have cornered the market in these, and 2 of the more well known companies are Marvin and Velfac. Of these Velfac doesn't do sashes, so if anyone knows of other manufacturers who do composite sashes drop me a line here.

What the Victorians Didn't Do for Us - Part1

Well for starters, they didn't do a lot of drawings. These houses were their equivalent of building mass-production, and there are huge numbers of similar ones all over the country, with minor variations. As a result the Victorian architect could rely on his builders to interpret a very basic set of drawings (in this case 2 for the whole road). If I did this so economically today it's likely I'd be sacked or at the very least sued further down the line!

Below are the drawings that I dug out of the local council archives (Building Control had them on microfilm and printed them for a small charge):

I'll be returning to these later when I get round to talking about construction in Part 2.