Anyone who has ever built a garden and planted it up with fresh new plants will be aware how instant the impact is.
Clean crisp paving with immaculate jointing; timber products that look like they've only just left the wood yard; plants that are fresh, turgid, in flower and without a leaf out of place.
The transformation of a previous dull and dreary spot or the development of a previously undeveloped garden can be as dramatic as it is quick.
Every year, garden designers and landscape gardeners compete to be best in show at flower shows the length and breadth of Britain.
For a few frantic weeks, garden builds of varying styles, shapes and sizes take shape to be judged with a hope of winning the coveted first prize.
For the practitioner it's their chance to be crowned top dog and for the consumer it is a chance to seek out ideas and inspiration to take away and adapt for their own surroundings.
Gardens must stand the test of time
Having built and gone on to maintain many gardens over the years I am only too aware that after a few short weeks, a garden can become lacklustre and far removed from the look it had the day it was completed.
When a garden is completed - whether that's as a short-lived show garden or at a client's property - it is but a mere snapshot in time. Gardens never stand still and need to be maintained to retain the features that were designed into them at the outset.
A garden's purpose is to reproduce and then sleep or retire. A gardener's job is to hold a garden in a constant state of pregnancy and keep it, as a whole, awake until it can be held no more.
However, also, the skill of a good gardener is essential if a garden is to retain its charm as intended long after the garden designer and landscaper has banked the cheque.
Even paving and walling never looks quite the same as the day they were first installed. There is a - quite naturally - a weathering process; the attachment of lichens and moss to dark damp surfaces; the build-up of soil deposits and the discolouration of once spotless surfaces. Jointing - often a weakness in a garden build - may fail over time.
To some people (and I'm one of them) a garden isn't a garden until has been allowed to mature and take on a personality of its own.
With this in mind I often wonder if it's now right to give gardens time, let's say a year, before being judged?
It's so easy to bung in plants that have been grown and nurtured for the occasion but it's far more difficult to keep any plant happy, in a real life environment, so that it retains the same characteristics as the day it was planted.
Furthermore, a garden, despite a gardener's best efforts to hold it as long as possible, is in a continuous state of flux: should a show garden be judged over more than one of a year's seasons?
Is it time to really put garden designers and landscapers to a longer term test? I do think we might see a whole new ball game and surprising results.
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