The Landscape Taking Root

We’ve been asked many times in the last few months about when the landscaping of our building will be complete and what it’s going to look like.

With our building about to reach full completion with our ground floor café (from 24 Aug), play area (from mid Sep), and finally snagging being completed (all the little things that have to be solved after building work), our attention turns to the outside.

The Challenges

So why is the exterior landscaping not done?

Four major reasons.

Firstly the completion of building works has delayed a few things – for example we had to do some digging to the right of our entrance to access a pipe – it didn’t make sense to start work there until this was finished.

Secondly, seasons. Planting at the right time of the year is very important – planting a tree at exactly the right moment can be the difference between that tree lasting for, potentially, 100+ years, opposed to less than 1 month!

Thirdly, the weather. The brutally hot weather has meant that it’s not necessarily been sensible to be planting or seeding areas. That’s not to say we hadn’t started in some areas before the hot weather hit (the recent rain might see some sudden blooms) – but it’s delayed us a little.

Finally, we’re taking a pragmatic approach. We’re planting younger, less mature plants & trees. This is important as it helps us get the best value-for-money. It’s a garden that will (like them all), grow over time rather than be finished straight away (although a garden is never really finished).

Our Team

We’ve been working with Dan Bristow of Studio Bristow (more?). Dan is a landscape designer who lives on the edge of the Eryri National Park. He’s a bit of a horticultural genius – his practice won a gold medal and ‘Best All About Plants garden’ at RHS Chelsea Flower Show and he’s been featured as one of the 20 most transformative Landscape Designers by Country & Town House.

Dan grew up around plants - his parents both had horticultural backgrounds - but it wasn't until his mid-twenties that a childhood love of growing things resurfaced alongside a passion for design.

What it’ll look like (over time)

"The building has such a stature," Dan says. "It requires a landscape to match." Where the theatre once sat awkwardly against its surroundings, the new landscape will bed it in with organic, mounded forms rising to meet the architecture, which burst through checkerboard paving inspired by the original that visitors have long walked across. A grid of boulders will create order that gently collides with nature's curves.

Growing in and around the boulders will be giant-leaved oaks - a resilient South Korean variety, chosen with a changing climate in mind (they’re extremely resilient to heat, cold and drought). They will, over the next decade, wrap their roots around the stones below. They’ll be combined with London Planes, historically trees of warmer southern climes, which will find a new home here in North Wales.

The gardens to the right of the main entrance will, when finished, include a water-spitting effigy of Llamhigyn Y Dŵr, the frog-bat of Welsh folklore in a sensory garden, alongside plants that smell of peanut butter and freshly baked fairy cakes (hungry yet?).

We’ve also planted climbing hydrangea around the building that will, over time, scale the walls and blend the building into the landscape. More gentle than ivy on the mortar and brickwork, as well as lower maintenance, the hydrangea is also great for supporting wildlife and biodiversity.

Meanwhile on the roof we’ve a wildflower garden that (although decidedly yellow at the moment), when in bloom is awash with colour and is close to the beehives that now sit on our room.

Dan puts it best when he says a landscape like this is never finished. It grows, morphs, matures, gains character. Give it ten years, and you'll find roots and rock finally locked together, right outside our door.

We’ll keep popping up photos on our Instagram as we plant and things grow, so you can keep up with how we’re changing and taking root*.

*terrible pun, our apologies**.
**100% not sorry.

Our Funders

We’re grateful to the WCVA for their continued support in enabling us to realise the planting and landscaping outside our building. You can find out more about the WCVA here.