Better Living - Landscape Gardening : the world beyond the Walls.

It takes a lot of discipline to maintain a garden. On Samui, the average couple of hours every now and then is enough to bring you down when you’re pruning, digging and planting in the tropical heat. And what if you don’t even have a garden, or you have one but, well, it’s a piece of wasteland? It’s often the case. How often have we heard it: ‘I fell in love with the house, as soon as I saw it.’ And what of the garden, we ask. The question is answered with a shrug of the shoulders. With so much accent on getting the interiors right, shouldn’t we be concerned about what’s outside our homes?

Because of the year-round fine temperatures on Koh Samui, there’s no firm delineation between house and garden; you can wander from the one to the other and back. If your garden looks a mess, it’s not as if you are living in cooler climes and can simply shut a door on it. Here, there may be no door to shut, just a huge glass panel. Some of us have neither the time nor the desire to take a piece of land and sculpt it until it reflects our lifestyle, our dreams and aspirations. If you wish to go ahead, there are some basic considerations to keep in mind, and one of the main ones is that you are far removed from ‘back yardening’ in Nottinghamshire.

Before buying plants, it’s essential to have a scheme for the garden. Then clear away anything and everything that you don’t want included. Sketch a plan next, and measure the space available too. The second step is to work out a budget. Putting down 10,000 ceramic paving cobbles can set you back financially. Keeping things cheaper doesn’t necessarily mean second rate: a long line of smooth pebbles, for example, makes a great border along the side of a house and won’t break the bank either.

But sometimes it’s not such a bad idea to throw up your hands and call in the experts. You will have a good excuse too: there is really no such thing as a Thai template for gardens. In a land where there is so much greenery and where such a high percentage of the population have traditionally been engaged in farming, gardens have never really caught on to the extent that they have in the west. Traditionally the Thais have sought ideas from both the east and the west for their gardens. There exists a variant on bonsai trees here, as well as a keenness for topiary: severely manicured bushes in the shape of animals and birds. As for inspiration from flowerbeds, that’s a lot harder to find. They tend not to exist, and those that do are inspired by what you have left back at home.

As Koh Samui becomes more developed there will be more landscapers setting up in business on the island. community magazine spoke to one of that still miniscule group, Nickie Yimsrisai. She holds a degree in interior design, but it’s the outside of a house that now interests her. ”Landscaping is a big challenge.” She told me. ”For the interior of a house you can go to a factory and find all the decorations you will need. For the garden though, that’s impossible. For a start you will probably have to physically shift a lot of earth...”

Her ideas for gardens can be radical. She is, for example, one of the few people to have built her own stupa. It stands in a small garden where it is admired and wondered at. Similarly she has single-handedly built a brick surround for a 200 year old teak Buddha statue. “I love it,” she says, “I found the statue in a remote town in Burma. It was lying on the floor of a junkshop, and was covered in dust. I brought it back here, and now it is an important part of the garden.” Really it’s the overall focal point, and quite a stunning one. But isn’t it odd to have an outdoor wooden statue? “Why?” she says. “I am a f i rm believer that antiques shouldn’t be kept in museums. They should be more a part of life. I want to see more decoration in gardens.”

Indeed she has achieved this, and has also made mythical animals out of terracotta, and designs her own bricks. As regards plants, shrubs and trees, she recommends careful thinking about where they are in relation to not just the house but also the prevailing winds. For many foreigners the plants used in gardens here can be a mystery, and those of us who are gungho buy what we fancy, then see them wilt and die; we have too little knowledge. Nickie showed us a garden using heliconia, frangipani and red ginger, all of them typical plants that she uses. “Before landscaping, this house wouldn’t sell. Nobody was interested. After the gardening was done, it was no longer a problem to sell it.” Of course, landscaping a property is going to add considerable value to it, just as putting in a swimming pool will, and it’s a question of a judicious outlay bringing present pleasure and future returns. Planning a garden always makes great sense, but if you don’t know where to start, then these days help is at hand from the growing number of landscaping experts.

Better Living - Landscape Gardening : the world beyond the Walls was first published by Samui Community Magazine in July 2005.