A romantic & contemporary new garden

28th June 2018

This quote I believe is by Alfred Lord Tennyson & the carving was commissioned by my client for his wife – I think it is beautiful. I’m not a poetry fan if I’m honest but I think this is just perfect & such a lovely gesture – so romantic & looks fabulous engraved in this lovely wide oak boardwalk. This is quite a sizeable scheme – not without issues as there is a considerable change in level from front to back. Although a serious headache I actually love to play with levels as the results can be amazing. They can …

A day in Antwerp buying trees last week

21st March 2018

There is the most fantastic nursery in Antwerp in Belgium where we occasionally take clients to buy really special mature trees & topiary. This week was one of those lucky weeks where we flew out for the day to see what we could find. I went with Tom Seward of TS Landscapes who build many of my gardens & collected him at 4am to travel to Heathrow. We met our clients there & the nursery collected us at the other end in Belgium. We chatted all the way & as always we were blown away by everything we saw on …

A garden designers own project – from the beginning

17th January 2018

I spend my life designing gardens for my clients but always design my own too. It’s something I love to do & learn from as an added bonus. I’ve had quite a selection over the years; a shoebox with my first little house, a large & casual Cotswold garden, a contemporary courtyard in Henley on Thames, a large & very formal garden to suit my fairly large Victorian house in Berkshire that we sold recently & now this. See blog posts regarding both of these last two gardens. Now I have redesigned what was a pretty confused garden that is …

My drawings for a barn conversion & large garden

9th October 2017

I have a great deal of work on at the moment – all of the gardens are really interesting & quite diverse too which is great. Obviously each design has to suit the clients requirements & wishes as well as suiting the environment. I love that challenge although sometimes this means going through a pain barrier to get the creative juices flowing! This project came about quite unexpectedly – I met my clients well over two years ago. They wrote to tell me they would wait a while as the timing wasn’t right; I thought it was just a polite …

A grand day out

22nd September 2017

I spent my birthday at Chateau Bourdaisiere in the Loire Valley. For me it’s a perfect day out – a fantastic building, a wonderful restaurant, fabulous grounds & a super shop! My birthday is in August so if I’m in the Loire Valley, I’m likely to have great weather. Spending the afternoon sitting in their walled kitchen garden amongst the dahlia collection, drinking local chilled wine under a shade & eating delicious home grown food with my husband is a very happy experience. There are literally hundreds of varieties in so many shapes & sizes – all labelled & grown …

See how this wild flower meadow has come on

23rd July 2017

Madly busy here lately but all good. I’ve been dashing about meeting new clients & dropping in to sites to see how they are all going. Well! is the answer – all looking great & everybody is happy. This is a project built last year & this is the wild flower meadow linking the house to the walled kitchen garden. It is looking fantastic & we’re all delighted – amazing the difference from when it was seeded & looked very bare indeed! The trees within it are mature fruit trees from an old orchard. They are a mix of pear …

A front garden being created

28th June 2017

There’s a lot going on at the moment. I have several schemes being built & quite few on my drawing board too. It’s all quite exciting particularly as they are all quite different. My client took these photo’s & sent them to me yesterday. She is delighted & so are we. I am back on site on Friday & looking forward to seeing further progress. This is part of a very large scheme that has taken a while to get under way due to several things – one being awaiting the house completion! A row of mature elm trees are …

Chelsea week & lots of media attention!

27th May 2017

It’s been a pretty manic but really interesting week this week. It kicked off last Saturday with photographer Oscar Kornyei from Metro newspaper visiting. We are selling our house & Metro had decided to showcase our place as the cover photo for their property section. Jo Knowsley; a journalist is delightful & was so enthusiastic about our house it was quite infectious! Having lived here for seven years I’d got used to our garden & had forgotten all the stuff we’d changed to make the house our own, but it came flooding back as we were chatting. Oscar …

We’re in Homes & Gardens Magazine!

10th April 2017

One of my gardens that I’ve written about quite a lot here is currently featuring as a 6 page spread in the May edition of Homes & Gardens Magazine. It is not entirely unexpected as the photographer took photos last summer but it was due to be featured in the June edition so we’re all delighted but a little surprised. Here’s a sneak preview… The article focusses on the natural aspects of the garden as Jane is a huge nature lover. The wild flower meadows are by Rob Jones as he’s the expert there – I do structures & layouts. …

All change!

16th March 2017

This is the lovely purple garden around the Breeze House at my client Jane’s garden. It was one of the first things I designed for her some years ago now & it’s been one of my personal favourite areas. I’d used the purple berberis ‘nana’ successfully before instead of box edging & here I used it to link with the Acers to tie the whole thing together. Indeed it was much admired last year at the open day. The largest Acer is original & we added more to complement it & settle the Breeze House into the area. Rather like …