Blog
Garden Design Trends: Finding Balance
I love looking at my garden in winter, I can see the overall structure, all the bare bones of it and think about what’s missing or not working. While the evenings are still dark and the weather is often grey and uninspiring it’s the perfect time to start planning any...
Planning and Planting a Cutting Garden: Perennials
There is an extra feeling of enjoyment that comes from a bunch of flowers that you have grown and cut from your own plot, above and beyond bringing some home from the shops. Many perennials make ideal cutting flowers, whether through a dedicated cutting patch at the...
Planning and Planting up a Cutting Garden: Bulbs
As all the bulbs are starting to appear in the garden centres and nurseries ready for planting this autumn along with all the seed catalogues, now is the perfect time to start planning a cutting garden. Whether considering giving over an area of the garden to it or...
Planting Design: Planting Plans and Plant Supply
Sometimes it is only the soft landscaping elements of the garden that need attention, the overall shape of the garden work or the hard landscaping elements for example, terrace, walls, steps or pergolas still work. However some of the plants have become overgrown or...
Garden Consultation
Sometimes we have lots of ideas buzzing round our heads but aren’t too sure how to pull them all together or which ones would work and which ones should be discarded. Or there could be an area in the garden where nothing seems to grow or there is an unsightly view to...
Having your garden designed: What’s involved?
So what happens when you want help to make the most of their outdoor space, perhaps to create a haven from the working day, a great space for the kids to play or tap into the current trends with an outdoor kitchen? I thought I would walk through what you can expect...
Chelsea Flower Show: Oranges and Purples
Although the key colour trend at Chelsea this year was green, it was closely followed by oranges and blues/purples with many of the perennial favourites in evidence. Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ with its purple stems and purple-blue flowers, the pompoms of alliums,...
Front Gardens: Making the most of a small space
Every time I walk along a street my heart sinks a little lower and I can’t help thinking of the Joni Mitchell song ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, in particular the line ‘They paved paradise and put up a parking lot’. Whilst I appreciate parking is at a premium in many towns and...
Snowdrop Walks and other bulbs for seasonal interest
I love going on a snowdrop walk, a chance to see a whole carpet of their tiny white nodding heads, the first signs that spring is on its way. It’s also an opportunity to drool over new varieties, a chance to add new clumps and perfect for covering up bare soil and...
Garden plants: Which ones are riding the heatwave
With the current heatwave I’ve been thinking about plants that tolerate dry conditions, what I can plant in clients’ gardens that aren’t going to require them to invest a lot of time in watering. There are a lot of plants falling into this category that I already love...
Winter colour in the garden: Stems, leaves and scented plants
I love wandering around a garden on a frosty day, feeling the winter sunshine on my face. It gives me a real sense of the bones of the garden, its shaping and its structure before all the flowers in their multi-coloured abundance are spilling over the paths. The...
Planting Combinations: Deep reds, grasses and a splash of purple
Wandering round the Chelsea Flower Show provided some great inspiration for planting combinations. For a combination of deep red flowers, the slightly crooked spikes of Lysimachia atropurpurea 'Beaujolais' mixed in with the nodding heads of Aquilegia vulgaris ‘Winky...