Phil Wang’s epic encounters with gangs of cows and urban foxes

I've been in the post bag again-

[laughs]

... getting all the letters.

We've got Louise.

Yeah.

She wants to know what everybody wants to know, I think, how can I get a water feature in my garden?

So this is the photograph that I've been shown.

Yes.

All right? So to describe the garden, there's a little sort of terrace that curves round that must come off the house.

Then there's this, you step up onto a lawn with central space, and there's another seating area tucked away in the corner.

I think, if I'm honest, it's not necessarily what she's put in her garden, it's the questions of, first of all, what do, does Louise want from it.

Yeah.

So is it the sound of water? Is it water as a surface? Is it moving water? You know, so find out what you want.

Practicalities of, you know, has it gotta be enclosed? Can it be open water? And then once you've done that, you know, then you can work out exactly where you wanna put it.

You know, so the sound of water might be nice next to a little seating area.

Wow, that's nice.

You know.

But interestingly, if you're gonna have surface water, it might be nice if you're leaving area one, getting to area two, that you sort of go past open water.

So it's just thinking about how, how you're gonna interact with it, how it's gonna affect your, you know, how it's gonna affect your movement through the garden, you know, how you're gonna enjoy it.

If you're putting a pond in, there's certain places you shouldn't put a pond, is there? Like, uh, like bright sunlight, shade.

Tell us the difference between those in terms of having a pond.

Yeah.

So I mean, the, the sunlight's all right.

But basically as long as, it's how you plant it.

So you would cover, you know, over sort of half the water with plantings.