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Busy Day Last Friday

Last week I was madly busy preparing for a Friday presentation to my client in Oxford. It’s a contemporary scheme with a south facing front garden where she & her family would like to sit & chill out whilst screened from the world. She wanted a Mediterranean feel & a storage space for bikes & bins. I had to disguise the fact that there was a drive. The rear north facing garden had to incorporate another relaxing area, dining area, lawn, office & a play area with a tree house for the children. How lovely! Here are some sketches & …

Talking tree houses

Tree houses are incredibly popular at the moment & why indeed not! They are fantastic for all – adults & children. I stayed in one in South Africa when I got married & we had monkeys joining us for breakfast. It was so stylish & well equipped – quite amazing. I am being asked more & more for tree houses with two currently on my books – one town & one country. There are lots of wonderful options so imagination & funding are the only limits. This is only a brief post today as I’m chock-a-block with work & meetings …

Unearthing a wine cellar!

I designed this bed full of pompom topiary for my client Jane to replace the overgrown straggly shrubs that were there. Whilst the guys were digging over the ground they found a hole! it was a filled in hole, but curiosity got the better of all so the team kept digging! stairs were found too! They lead sadly not to an amazing tomb filled with riches but a large underground room. How interesting – hmmm what shall we do with it? A wine cellar was considered a great idea but how do we stop little ones falling in? A lovely …

Land sculpture

As I was telling you yesterday about a project near Henley that involves land sculpture I thought I’d share some images of how we did it at another site near Amersham. It’s the garden titled ‘Estate’ in my folio. Here are a few ‘before’ shots – as you can see, the terrace hovers over the garden with an ugly retaining wall with no safety barrier. My client wanted to bring the garden to the house so land sculpture seemed the ideal solution. Here is my sketch for a substantial new raised garden! As the garden is so large, the scale …

Hi ho hi ho….

Happy New Year everybody! I hope it brings you everything you wish for. Thanks again to all my existing clients for such wonderful projects – it’s been a pleasure. I hope you continue to enjoy your gardens for years to come. Yes – I’m back to work today. I have a few schemes on the board at the moment & a few others brewing so I’m hoping for a really busy & interesting 2014. Of course I will share here & talk about processes before all the beautiful finished photos go up on my website. My priority is a site …