Investing in the garden
The creation of gardens in a period of economic uncertainty could be considered a superfluous expense to be postponed to better times.
The garden, be it a small private garden or a garden within your company, must instead be considered an investment.
The private garden is the outside continuation of the house and is an essential complement.
A beautiful garden is a multiplier of property value.
In more advanced contexts than ours, as in the Anglo-Saxon world, it is common practice to invest in the creation of a garden to raise the value of real estate properties.
In Northern Europe or America, the garden project is always an integral part of the home renovation project.
Designing the house and the garden together allows you to manage an overall budget and make the most functional choices in both areas, with much better results.
In Italy it often happens to focus only on buildings forgetting that, once the construction work is completed, we will invariably have to take care of the exterior.
Realizing that you have to put your hand to the garden after completing the renovation of the house is definitely too late.
The configuration of the garden is conditioned by the choices made previously, with the risk that it is not very functional and also expensive to manage over the years.
In addition, the available budget will have been spent on the house and the realization of the garden will be seen as an additional cost.
So you will try to save money by avoiding designing the garden and turning directly to a gardener or a garden center.
This is the main reason why you often see very beautiful houses with banal and discounted gardens.
Experience the private garden
It must be clearly stated that investing in the creation of our garden is profitable only if it partially changes our way of life.
The garden should not only be admired, nor can it be limited to being a status symbol that affirms our prestige.
Surely the garden does not respond to utilitarian logics and therefore must be beautiful, or has no reason to exist.
Feeling gratification while admiring our garden is an important source of satisfaction.
In addition, it is more than legitimate to consider the garden as an element that reflects our tastes and communicates our social status to others.
But that can’t be all.
The garden must lead us to spend more time outdoors and to recover contact with nature.
In the case of large gardens, the correct design must push us to walk inside it and discover hidden and unexpected corners.
If it is a small garden you must include an area to take care of, in which to plant seasonal blooms or small fruits.
Whenever possible, the garden must include a small home area in which to grow our vegetables and in which to spend a few hours together with our loved ones, especially with our children.
If we stay in the garden and abandon ourselves to the slow pace of nature, we learn again to feel and look with new eyes.
It is essential to live the garden and animate it with our presence: only in this way will we love it and it will truly become part of our home.
Green in the workplace
When you want to design a garden within your company, you have to make specific considerations.
Ornamental greenery in the workplace meets different criteria than in the private garden.
Creating a pleasant and hospitable environment in our companies is now essential from many points of view.
A successful business must have a brand that lives up to the products and services it offers.
The image of the company is conveyed first of all by the quality of its offices and its production facilities.
Obsolete and impersonal buildings cannot convey the image of an innovative, socially responsible and forward-looking company.
However, you cannot limit yourself to the preparation of a garden at the entrance of the buiding or inside an elegant reception area.
Anyone who sees people as the company’s greatest asset, and therefore wants to attract a skilled workforce, cannot offer a gloomy and gray workplace.
Bright and positive people cannot work in places suitable for mass production of the twentieth century.
Poorly lit rooms and claustrophobic cubicles generate alienation and depersonalization.
This situation seriously compromises the productivity and creativity of individuals.
It is therefore important to set up bright environments with plants and natural elements, in which people do not feel oppressed.
It is scientifically proven that being surrounded by plants and dedicating oneself to their care, even with few notions, has considerable benefits both on mood and on health.
For this reason green spaces are now rightly included in places where the well-being of people must be better guaranteed, such as in nursing homes or hospitals.
The presence of plants around us not only helps to purify the air we breathe, but helps reduce stress and improve interaction with colleagues.
Ornamental greenery must therefore enter our work environments.
Making plants an integral part of the work place is a fundamental element to improve both the image of the company and the productivity of the employees.
The garden project
If we have decided to design and build a garden, be it the home garden or the company green, we will want to give maximum value to our investment.
A beautiful garden must reflect our tastes and harmonize with our home or interpret the company’s mission.
A well-designed garden does not have to require too much work or high running costs.
To obtain all these results it is necessary to carry out a reasoned and shared project between garden designer and client.
Here’s what at least a garden project needs to include:
the drawing of the current state of the area, which includes an accurate survey and an analysis of the existing situation;
the drawings of the project proposal with views and renderings that illustrate the appearance of the various environments;
the planting plan with the blooms, seasonality and characteristics of trees and shrubs;
the lighting proposal and the suggested materials for outdoor flooring and outdoor furniture;
the schemes of the irrigation system and garden lighting;
cost estimates for the construction of the garden;
the plan for a sustainable management of the garden that is respectful of the environment and attentive to our health.
So the design of green areas is a complex job, which however allows to achieve considerable savings both in the creation of the garden and in its future management.
If the garden project is proposed for free as part of its realization, we should be suspicious.
If we are then presented with an approximate drawing and some photos of plants, we are fooled with a garden project which is actually just a mirror for larks.
That is, we are buying in a closed box without having a clear idea of either the final result, or the costs of realization and management.
The garden designer knows how to interpret the needs of the customer, and consequently knows how to direct each person towards the creation of the garden that best suits their desires and needs.
So if we want to invest in the garden, we must consider it as an integral part of our home and demand a clear, exhaustive project that satisfies us in all its parts.
