I love my job as a garden designer. I say it all the time because it is true. One of my favourite things after actually drawing is shopping for trees. I was in Belgium last week looking for mature trees for a few projects – particularly mature topiary. Unfortunately the weather was pretty dreadful but other than that it was great to visit my favourite nursery again. I went for two days & met with Tom of TS Landscapes on day 2. Here’s a little of what we found…

Here’s Tom. We endured horizontal rain & hailstones – look carefully & you will see Tom’s jeans are soaked – poor thing!

I was searching for trees for a couple of schemes I was working on; the garden of a Georgian style property on the Oxfordshire/Buckinghamshire border with 7 acres another with 40 acres. That one is the garden of a grade l listed manor house in Warwickshire. For me as a designer it’s fantastic & sometimes I take clients to choose these wonderful specimens. The memory will stay with them & make their garden feel even more personal & special. For me as a designer & all involved it means we’re creating exceptional unique gardens that are personal to my clients.

Here’s proof of the hailstones! We selected a few of these wonderful topiary beech trees – the ones on the left are earmarked for my Warwickshire scheme

These images give you an idea of scale. On the left you’ll see Annick with her measuring stick. Twelve of these topiary taxus domes will feature beautifully in my client’s ‘secret garden’. They will add instant maturity which is what it needs – very exciting! There’s a story behind these ones too – usually the nursery digs up the trees every couple of years & transplants them. It makes a neat & portable rootball with plenty of healthy fibrous roots. These domes were sold twenty years ago by the nursery to line the entrance to a village but they had become too wide & restricted access down the path they flanked. They asked the nursery if they would be interested in having them back. The nursery said yes & actually swapped them for single stemmed specimens which folks could walk beneath. After a couple of years at the nursery where they remained happy & healthy they were made available to designers like me. I’ll post pictures when they are in their lovely new home.

Just look at these wonderful topiary specimens! SO fantastic – I am like the proverbial kid in a sweetshop when I visit this place – it never fails to make me smile & they are the nicest people you could hope to meet.

Back to my drawing board now – as usual I’m really busy