Gardens
Every garden here is shown twice
A garden photographed on handover day tells you almost nothing. Each entry says what it was the week we planted it and what it is now, and gives the year so you can do the arithmetic yourself.
The Long Terrace
Planted: a bare south slope of heavy clay over builders' rubble, three hundred hornbeam whips at knee height, and a mown path that looked like a mistake. Now: the hornbeam is above head height on both sides, the path is the only route through, and the clay holds water well enough that the garden was not watered at all last summer.
Font Vella Square
Planted: forty square metres of compacted gravel around a fountain, with low santolina, euphorbia and a ring of thyme, all of it looking thin and municipal. Now: the thyme has closed over the gravel and is walked on daily, two of the euphorbias were lost to a hard winter and replaced with something tougher, and the council has stopped watering it.
The Roof at Carrer Ample
Planted: eighteen centimetres of lightweight substrate, a parapet, and five species chosen because they can take a constant north wind. Now: the grasses have thickened into a single moving surface and the two small pines have taken the shape the wind gave them, which is leaning and better than anything we drew.
Cal Ferrer Orchard
Planted: fourteen bare-root fruit trees in February, spaced at what the clients thought was an absurd distance apart, with clover sown between them. Now: the canopies are three metres short of touching, which is where we wanted them in year twelve, and the clover has been cut for hay twice.
The Dry Bank
Planted: a two-metre bank of poor stony soil that had been sprayed for years, planted straight into it with no topsoil brought in and no irrigation laid. Now: about a fifth of the first planting died in the second summer, as we said it would, and what survived has seeded itself down the slope and is beginning to hold it together.
The Courtyard at Molí
Planted: a walled courtyard emptied of concrete, with one multi-stemmed tree, ferns along the north wall and nothing else, which looked very empty for a year. Now: the ferns have met, the tree is casting real shade in July and the owners have asked us twice not to add anything.
Time
The week it was planted, and this year
Drag across each pair. The left-hand image is the week we finished planting; the right-hand image is the same view, same month, this year.
Before
AfterThe Long Terrace, 2017 and now 
Before
AfterCal Ferrer Orchard, 2019 and now
Want to see one of these in person?
Three of the gardens above have owners who are happy to have visitors, on a Saturday, with notice. We will come too and answer for whatever has gone wrong.