I do love a posh garden centre!

7th October 2025

I’m really lucky in that I get to see the most amazing trade nurseries when buying & selecting trees in particular for my clients. My absolute favourite is Solitair in Belgium… here are a few photos I took when visiting with Tom, my contractor. As you can see we can buy incredible Alice in Wonderland style topiary. I do however also love a posh garden centre that’s open to all. I fortuitously live very near 3 really splendid ones where I go for inspiration sometimes but never leave empty handed. My favourite is Daylesford which started as a farm shop. …

Time to go home…

1st September 2025

We’ve spent much of the Summer here in our French house & it’s been fabulous. Such hot weather (bit too hot tbh), visits to the local markets, dog walks, family visits & oh I got a lot of work done too! Bruno loves it as we’re always around & he gets fantastic walks over the fields that surround us – that is when the cows aren’t there! We visited Chateau de Rivau whilst family were visiting – it’s a really lovely place with super gardens & a great restaurant set within their parterre. Look at this super planting scheme & …

A new garden design on my drawing board amongst other news

14th July 2025

Very busy recently – as usual – with some lovely new work to tax my design skills. There is a Manor house in my work queue which I’m looking forward to starting. Meantime, here is a new garden design that is currently on my drawing board for a pretty house in Goring, Berkshire. My clients bought the house next door so my job has been to amalgamate both plots to not only look fabulous throughout the seasons but provide shelter, various entertaining spaces & great sight lines… …& here is an axonometric sketch of how it might look. The pool …

I visited a recently completed & quite wonderful architectural garden I designed in Old Amersham

1st July 2025

I took Bruno my beautiful Briard to see a recently completed architectural garden I designed yesterday in Old Amersham. It is a courtyard style garden on 3 levels to suit the modern architecture of the new passive house. It is a structured scheme of contemporary ‘garden rooms’ & sight-lines – with plenty of interest & areas to sit & admire & enjoy. This photo below shows the bespoke seating area beside the modern conservatory. There are both steps & a slope for easy access to all levels however able you are… I had arranged to meet James – a professional …

Photograffista

3rd June 2025

Lisa S. Elin is Photograffista & follows me on Instagram . We chat occasionally. She’s a photographer & artist based in Canada & produces the most amazing work. I follow her back & love to see what she’s up to as I have always loved photography – since studying it way back on my foundation course when I was 16. She somehow flips photos in half to produce layered mirrored images – it’s really clever! Anyway – she recently did this with one of my photos of my scheme at Pip’s Place in the Chilterns. Here’s my photo & this …

A great site visit to Bath yesterday

8th May 2025

I had a super site visit yesterday. I do love a good before & after….these below however are actually before & ‘during’! The water features were going in when I arrived which was pretty momentous. Everything in this garden is bespoke so it’s all taken a while. It is a grade I listed townhouse too so that adds to the delays. Thankfully the planners were very happy with the garden design so it’s not been too bad… it is a garden on two levels & the lawn area was sloped. That slope was pretty horrible so we have levelled it …

Latest work & Cotswold life in March

17th March 2025

Hello, this is just a quick round up of various projects & things I’ve been up to here in Hardwick in March. It was our wedding anniversary on the 5th so we went to The Wild Rabbit at Kingham for dinner. It’s my favourite restaurant where the food & style are both excellent. Highly recommended it’s one of the Bamford/ Daylesford group & all their places are fantastic. I’m a huge fan. Work-wise I’ve quite a range of work on my books at the moment. This one pictured above is my latest garden design & it’s quite complicated. The plot …

I won again! Best of Houzz 2025

19th February 2025

Hello & apologies for not writing for such a long time – oops!! Time flies as they say 🙂 So on Monday I checked my emails & Houzz had sent me an email telling me I had won the best design award – Best of Houzz 2025. What a lovely start to the week & I’d done nothing to make it happen; the lovely users of the Houzz website had done it so thank you all @ Houzz!! I believe it is about how many saves a garden gets & this one is a Cotswold garden I designed 20 years …

A week of site visits

6th December 2024

It’s definitely Winter here at Manor Farm Barn this week as we’ve had the first flurry of snow. It looked so pretty but didn’t last long sadly. The Winter sun has taken over showing the Hakonechloa off in it’s Autumn colour against the Cotswold stone… Busy busy with work as always – I have several projects being built at the moment so am spending my time travelling about visiting 3 separate sites & my clients both new & existing. On top of that I’m madly trying to get some drawing done. All good – it’s great to be busy – …

Buying mature trees & topiary @ fabulous trade nurseries

29th October 2024

Buying mature trees & topiary for clients is a real perk of my job. I get to go to wonderful places & buy fantastic specimen trees – some so enormous we have to plant them with the aid of a crane. Last week I went with Tom to find trees & topiary for my Bath project currently being built by his team. This is one of my drawings of my design. It is a courtyard garden behind one of the fabulous classical Georgian facades at this elegant townhouse just near the Royal Crescent. My aim is for the garden to …

Chelsea Award Winning Garden Design