Garden Observations: On Craft and continuity
I've been noticing the oak frame on this garden log store this week; the way the joints sit tight, the grain running through the principal posts, the slight irregularities in the timber that give it character. We built this ourselves.
Most companies would outsource this work. Oak framing appears on the specification list, a specialist gets called, they arrive for a few days, complete the work, and leave. Professional, efficient, ticked off the list.
We've never worked that way.
But there's something we lose in that handoff.
When I forecast a craft appearing in a future project, drystone walling, timber framing, whatever it might be, I share it with the team. Not as an inevitability, but as an opportunity. Could we do this ourselves? What training would we need? What would it take?
The question isn't about saving money or avoiding contractors. It's about who we are.
We've nurtured these gardens from initial conversations through design development and into the ground. We've lived with the site through weather and seasons, solved problems as they've emerged, adjusted and refined as we've built. When we learn the craft ourselves, we stay connected to the whole.
It makes us better craftsmen. It makes us a more capable team. But more than that, it creates a coherent thread through the entire project. There's no disconnect between design intention and built reality when the same hands that cleared the ground are the ones shaping the final details.
The client feels this, I think. Not consciously perhaps, but in the continuity of care. In the fact that when they ask about the oak frame, we can explain not just what we specified, but how we actually built it. We were there. We made it happen.
Standing here looking at these timbers, I can remember the conversation a few years ago, when we first knew this would be needed. I remember the training course, the first tentative practice joints, the point where it clicked for the team. And now here it is, part of the garden, part of our story with these clients.
This is why we do what we do.
