A slight deviation from gardens

9th July 2015

We’ve been here for just over 5 years & have been gradually doing the house up as well as creating a garden. Above is the old kitchen that came with the house. Everyone said how lovely it was but it just didn’t do it for me. I did what I could with it – had it painted & bought it smart leather handles but really I wanted more. More worktop space, more circulation space, more light as we are north facing, a proper overhang for our barstools so people can talk to me whilst I cook & now …

Garden open to the public

28th June 2015

One of my gardens was opened to the public last week under the open gardens scheme & it was a great success. The sun shone, people arrived in droves, much tea & cake was consumed all was well in my world! Jane & Doug who own the garden had it looking pretty pristine – all of us involved with this lovely project were very proud. Over £1400 was raised for the charity & numbers neared 300 visitors. Here are some pics I took on the day

What an entrance!

15th May 2015

As a garden designer I’m always looking for ideas & assessing what other folks & cultures have created. Ideas come from all over the place so I take photos on my travels to refer to when I’m looking for inspiration. An entrance needs to ‘set the scene’ & reflect ones personality or status perhaps. We’ve just returned from a super trip to Provence & I just loved it there. It was all so stylish, I fell in love with their style all over again as I do on all my trips to France. We were driving down a little lane …

What does a garden designer look like?

20th March 2015

I had a call the other day from a lady wanting her garden designed. I was out on site & being windy I couldn’t really hear what she was saying. What I did hear though was that I was recommended by an interior designer who always referred to me as ‘Prada Jo’. Intrigued, I called the lady back when I got back to my studio to discuss her project. According to her interior designer friend I was the garden designer who turns up with a Prada handbag & designs great gardens. It amused me & made me smile – not …

Quite a week last week!

19th March 2015

I have been working at least 6 days a week lately to try & keep up with an amazing workload – I’m not complaining – truly! Just apologising for not writing a blog for yonks & explaining what a nightmare it is when I lose a day to ‘unforeseen circumstances’… In case you hadn’t guessed, my car died in London in the middle lane of the A40 just by Madame Tussauds on my way to see a client. I had a full day planned with several meetings but alarmingly spent a great deal of it directing traffic away from my …

Happy New Year!

20th January 2015

I know I’ve been extremely quiet of late so apologies to those who follow my blogs – I can’t always find the time to write about what I’m up to aswell as getting on with what I’m paid to do! I am having the best year ever as I’m so inundated with fantastic work.Thank you so much to all my super clients old & new for trusting me with your gardens. How I love my job – I am one lucky designer. I’m juggling quite a few different schemes at present & have some lined up too. Here’s what I’m …

Can’t we too have stone pavements?

5th November 2014

After tree buying in Sunny Autumnal Hampshire I dashed off for a few even sunnier days in Portugal for a quick break with my husband. Besides enjoying 25 degree sunshine & warm balmy evenings – yes in November lucky me! It was great to see & enjoy a different culture. We visited the newly built Paula Rego foundation with its fantastic architecture. She was a local girl (now living in London) & designed the place herself I understand – it’s gorgeous… Pictured here next to it on the right is a scientific research centre just up the road from us. …

Buying mature trees for Autumn colour

5th November 2014

Last Monday I spent the day at Hilliers tree nursery in Ampfield, Hampshire. They are a terrific source of British field grown trees & are fairly local to me which is all great. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m working on a substantial Acer glade for my client Jane, so went with my colleague Rob Jones of The Garden Design Co Ltd as he & his team are implementing the scheme for her. We had a wish list of what we wanted & had reserved some on principle but, it’s really important when buying large expensive specimens that you are really …

Latest News

10th October 2014

Latest News I have been busy on so many projects I’ve not had time to update my behind the scenes section so here’s a brief update of what I’ve been doing… I am part way through a design for a very large (100 acre) estate in the Cotswolds. My client won’t be moving in for a couple of years & it is currently a building site but forward thinking such as this means we can design & get the landscape establishing first. There’s a lake (see above plan) for example which will have a couple of islands & maybe some …

A parterre in the making here at home

18th August 2014

We garden here on a budget as we’ve quite a large garden at just under an acre & only so much spare dosh if I’m honest! We’re doing it ourselves, are still creating it & although gardens are always a work in progress, we’re still building the bones of ours. When we bought the place it was such a mess that needed dismantling & sorting out – here’s proof! Agreed? I wanted to create a new terrace within the garden itself as the one we inherited was in completely the wrong position. It was at the bottom of the garden …