Making marks
Making marks is all part of the design process. Typically I start work with pencils and graphite markers on tracing paper as the first step, sometimes working with coloured crayons
Planning for summer bulbs
Winter is not even over and Spring a longed for moment that is a good month and a half away but NOW is the time to plan those summer bulb
A time to plan
In these dark winter days I find myself planning many things, sometimes gardens in their entirety mostly it’s planting or work schedules for the year to come but then there
Recipe – Rhubarb, Date and Ginger chutney
It’s January the time for clearing out and cleaning down and generally getting ready for the seasons to come. I will admit our freezer has been rather bulging with excess
Bare roots
In September there is always a wild rush to plant while the soil is still warm enough for plants to get a start with settling in before winter but
Hippeasturm (Amaryllis)
Late in the winter when it’s still dark as all hell and even the mornings are murky darkness, one plant brings me such joy. Bursting with unseasonal vigour and vivid
Book Review: Secret Gardens of East Anglia – Barbara Segall
I love a good book and can slew through one in a few hours if hooked. I read a lot of books, sometimes having 3 or 4 on the go
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Plant of the Month – May – Iris
Plant of the month in May will always be an Iris for me, closely followed I will admit by a Peony. The only way to describe it is that I
Recipe – Red Currant Jelly
I always have great plans for preserves and jamming as much of my produce and foraging as possible as the seasons roll around but last year everything well to hell
Plant of the Month – December – Galanthus
December or is it really January when we expect to see those tiny white nodding heads lighting up the garden and heralding Spring, well at least the start of something
Flower Farming
Garden designing is a precarious business, at least for me as a small business, so I have been looking at other streams of income to run smoothly alongside and bring
Recipe: Crab Apple Jelly
I am a preserver, by that I mean I make use of as much produce, foraged, home grown and free as I can. From my plot (400m2), from friends as
10 things to know about doing an RHS Show Garden
1. Read the RHS manual’s before hand and then read them again. Tomes I thought, one was 90 odd pages. “No time“, “not really going to be relevant“. BUT how
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How do you keep Slugs and Snails off your Hosta’s?
During the build up for the RHS Tatton 2016 show one of the neighbors suggested we might be getting some questions from visitors about how we had such perfect Hostas.
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RHS Tatton – it’s almost over, dismantling the show garden
Officially we could have dismantled on Sunday but not one of us was that desperate to slog that one out. Queuing to get back onsite after the show closed was
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RHS Tatton – Judging and THE Press
Still catching up with the posts about our RHS Tatton garden, admittedly in a fairly random order! For a first timer there was quite a bit of anxiety around this.
RHS Tatton – Week 1 build
Goodness what a steep learning curve that was! RHS Tatton 2016 is well and truly over and it was mostly madness and all consuming except for the one half day
RHS Tatton – 1 week to go
I read last year that Dan Pearson and his Chelsea team did a dry run of the garden they presented, which must have been quite the feat given the size
RHS Tatton – 2 weeks to go
2 weeks today we will be onsite. EEEK Oddly I haven’t done this kind of counting down for a long time, normally I don’t need, or get, this much headspace
RHS Tatton – 3 Weeks to go
I maybe confusing some folk, when I say 3 weeks to go, this is 3 weeks until I GO to RHS Tatton, the show is open to the public from
RHS Tatton – 4 weeks to go
In fact it’s 3.5 weeks until we decamp to Cheshire and the start of the build on our garden, Inner Sanctum, at RHS Tatton. It has been quite the journey
Planning Planting – Tropical
I’m working on a planting scheme at the moment, for a client who loves the tropical. It’s a bit of a departure from the norm but that is what is
Plant of the month – January – Chimonanthus praecox
January is a barren month, cold wet skies, low grey cloud sucking the colour out of everything before your very eyes. This year has been slightly brighter with the recently
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Garden Visit: Wimpole Hall in late summer
One of my favorite local-ish gardens is NT Wimpole Hall. At this time of the year the wonderfully wide (3m at least) herbaceous borders flanking the walled kitchen garden are
Garden Visit: Pensthorpe, Norfolk
Visiting a new client in Norfolk last week and took the opportunity to visit Pensthorpe Millenium Gardens, just down the road. Another delightfully dingy day brought out the zingy colours
7 rewarding later summer perennial plants
Later-ish summer perennials that go on flowering and flowering are a bonus for the gardener and for the wildlife feeding and foraging in our green spaces. The light begins to
Garden Visit: RHS Tatton
After a damp squib day at Wollerton the day before a bright breezy day at RHS Tatton Park was perfect. I went at the invitation of the RHS Tatton team
Garden Visit: Wollerton Old Hall – Summer
A damp squib of a day really but as I only had one day free, that day it had to be. I have been to Wollerton Old Hall a few
Competition – Win Rare Irises
Well it’s that time of year again for the Iris collection only this year it’s dividing time, which means satisfying lots of orders and giving some to wonderful charitable groups
Visiting Gardens – II
I’ve been quite busy with designing and planting over the last few months, which is always good and brings an opportunity to look back at the garden visit archives here
Visiting Gardens – I
I think as a gardener and designer one of my favorite ‘jobs’ has to be visiting gardens of others. All sorts of gardens, RHS, National Trust, NGS open gardens, Plant
I was infuriated and disappointed by a Guardian piece from Ed Cumming. Following Dan Pearson on his return to Chelsea he reported remarks that seemed to show a rather disdainful
Winter Scent
I make regular visits to a variety of gardens not only to see new and exciting designs, layouts, materials in situ and planting combos but also to see how they
Have you seen the Olympic-scapes?
Olympic-Scapes? well the Olympic Landscapes of course! The Games were not the only draw for this summers BIG event in the East of the city of London. I suspect Mr
Garden Visit – Barrington Court
On a whim a couple of weeks ago I went ‘nursery trawling’ in the south west-ish of England. I collect Iris, specifically Miniature Tall Bearded iris but of late I
Inspirations from a Walled Garden – Wimpole Hall
I know I have banged on about Wimpole Hall on several occasions, it is my ‘local’ NT garden after all but it remains an inspiring place to go and is
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Planning in those exhibitions
Always a difficult task to plan time out of the office, away from the drawing board but taking the time now is going to pay dividends when flapping about for
Uncovering Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire.
The gardens at Wimpole Hall are of great note and yet it’s pedigree seemingly not well noticed. I have been visiting the estate and gardens for several years now and
The Dorothy Clive Gardens
REFLECTIONS UPON A GARDEN VISIT – written for the SGD student writing competition 2010. The Dorothy Clive Garden, Shropshire Shropshire is glorious country. Far enough off the beaten track to be
Piet & Anja Oudolf at the Garden Museum
Sifting through a friends copy of the Saturday Telegraph some weeks ago I came across an article flaunting talks with legendary Piet Oudolf and Tom Stuart Smith. Ok only legendary
Garden Visit: Anglesey Abbey
With the flurry of activity surrounding the Hard Landscape portfolio and Bespoke portfolio visits to winter gardens for shots to go into the Soft Landscape portfolio have all but been
Garden Visit: RHS Wisely
A dreary day with some drizzle greeted me at RHS Wisely which is just off the M25 south of London. Amazingly the car park was half full. School visits and
Garden Visit: The Savill
My first trip to The Savill Garden just 3 junctions North from Wisley, indeed I have never heard of it before this week! Fabulous visitor centre and plenty of new
Garden Visit: Rousham
Rousham: William Kent gardens Stunning, the sun came out finally. Blousy and suprising dahlia beds, huge and not so huge clipped box and yew, almost clouds but not quite there
Garden Visit: Willow Holt, Lincolnshire
End of season for the National Garden Scheme gardens really but one or two brave places are still opening to the public. Conscious of the need to ‘shoot’ some autumn