Apologies for my absence!

17th July 2023

How time flies as they say – apologies for my absence from my blog but I’ve been pretty snowed under (again!) Firstly – very sad news as we lost Dillon, our beautiful 16 year old Maine Coon cat a week before we came out to France. He featured in my last blog actually – I showed a photo of him sprawled as usual all over my desk & keyboard. He hadn’t been well & thankfully we were both with him when he unexpectedly died. Such a gorgeous boy & a happy adventurer too as we always brought him to France …

OK studio – grow up!

27th April 2023

My studio in France is tiny. I’ve never minded as it has been fantastic having one here at all! I made it fun & used a tropical print for one wall which I’ve enjoyed looking at for 7 years now. We’ve been doing up our lovely French house with brocante finds since we signed the ownership papers. I really wanted authentic old French furniture & mirrors & a shabby chic kind of vibe – no Ikea for me thanks. As you can see above it’s a beautiful old house built of local tuffeau stone. It was originally built for the …

Designing a new topiary garden

31st March 2023

You might recognise this garden if you know my work…this is part of the Secret Garden at Pip’s Place. Have a look here – https://www.joannealderson.com/portfolio/large-gardens-estates/pips-place/. We bought the big taxus topiary beehives in Belgium a few years ago as part of phase 1 & now we are going to add to them. Ginni asked to meet up to discuss this garden & pondered making some changes. She told me how expensive it was to maintain with mowing etc & sadly all the Ilex crenata edging (supposedly the wonder plant replacement for buxus) had died! My immediate thought was to create …

Working from France again

4th April 2022

I’ve just got back from working away for 6 weeks at Le Bordage – our place in France – in Loches in the Loire Valley. We live there completely whilst there in that we take Bruno our beautiful briard & Dillon our Maine Coon cat. They know the routine & usually settle in immediately. That said, we are having some building work done over there so it was a tad trying at times with the mess & disruption but Maurice, our builder is very charming so we forgive him a lot although, I don’t think Dillon has! I took several …

Working from France

26th July 2021

Six years ago our dream came true & we bought a house in France. I love the relaxed French way of life; their fabulous architecture, food, style, culture & in this area – the weather! We bought a stone house two miles away from the Medieval Royal City of Loches in the Loire Valley. It is a picture perfect French town with a fantastic market that takes over all the cobbled streets twice a week. We love to sit & people watch from one of our favourite cafes on a Saturday morning & buy wine from one of the independent …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

A French tale

27th May 2014

A French tale We’ve just returned from an eventful trip to Burgundy. The car died & we suffered a great deal of hassle but nevertheless, they are so right when they say how stylish the French are. Everywhere we went the landscape was so well considered & beautiful. My header photo is just typical of what I mean – four fabulous Acers mark the centre of the village & provide shade too for visitors & locals alike. Lines of poplars are everywhere which is of course classic French countryside but doesn’t it just look fabulous? We visited Fontenay Abbey built …

Chelsea Award Winning Garden Design