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Realising the joy of underwater gardening. |
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Before: I built the stone steps and oyster-free swimming cove |
I was just out of Art school doing odd jobs and my friend Matt offered me some work,
building stone steps for a property at
Cottage Point. I have always enjoyed landscaping with stones, so I jumped at the opportunity.
The stones for this particular job were all gathered from the site. Experience has taught me, when working with stones it should be within a 5-1o meter radius from were I want to use it. By doing this the stones will suit the environment and I won't break my back moving them around. To my joy, I also discovered
stones are a lot lighter to move underwater. So I used this to my advantage and saved a lot of time.
The time I saved making the steps, I used to
landscape underwater, creating a small
oyster-free cove for launching a row boat or a place to swim. Unfortunately the couple who paid me for the days work thought I was just mucking about in the water. To give you an idea of what they must of seen, use your hand and cover the underwater part of my coloured drawing - I just look like I'm just playing in the water.
It wasn't until I'd gone home, they went down a had a closer look and realised what I'd created for them. A functional and subtle design which the fish also loved.