Diarmuid Gavin shares the incredible story of his Wicklow garden over the years

We made the big move from London to Wicklow 13 years ago. My daughter Eppie was just two and the house we chose was a new-build nestled in a new estate at the foot of the Sugarloaf mountain.

However, reality kicked in. But this turned into an opportunity. I had time to consider what would really work, to observe where the sun was at different parts of the day, to see how it moved to the plot and to understand what style of veranda structure would work for a house of this type. My breakthrough moment came in Charleston, South Carolina. I was filming at a colonial ranch where the movie The Notebook had been made and I came across the area's iconic "single" houses — long, narrow homes with piazzas that stretch down the entire side.

There were missteps...I was filming abroad and the contractor chosen to install lawns, terraces and ponds proved to be a disaster. While the garden looked good, underneath the newly laid turf the soil had been once again heavily compacted with machinery, sand rather than topsoil had been used as a bed for the lawns and the ponds leaked! I would spend years undoing the damage.

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