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 …

New year news

18th January 2017

Wishing you a chilly but Happy New Year to all! This header photo was taken in France where I spent my Christmas break. I’m not a huge fan of freezing temperatures but it does make everything so beautiful! Thanks so much to my lovely clients for the wonderful opportunities & challenges you have given me over the past 12 months. I had my best year ever last year with an array of fascinating projects of all sizes & this year sees more to come. I will try to keep you up to date but I’m usually so busy working I forget …

Tree planting on a grand scale!

18th November 2015

I chose four of these fantastic Pterocarya fraxinifolia (wingnut trees) for my clients’ garden in the Cotswolds last March. Aren’t they fantastic? Lots of planning since then & yesterday they arrived on site! The ground was prepared in advance & several hours later the 1st one is in the ground…They weigh several tonnes each so sufficiently capable kit was brought in & as you can see this tele-handler almost makes it look easy. Two are going in today to complete the line-up & will match in beautifully with a copse close by. The aim of buying such large specimens was to add …

A fantastic buying trip last week!

21st September 2015

My clients flew over to meet me in Belgium last week to select large yew topiary specimens & some trees for their large garden. It was a great day as I’d not visited before – only bought via emailed photos. It makes all the difference actually being able to look at trees in three dimensions & relate to them & we all had a super time deciding which ones would work best. My sketch for this topiary walk is below… There were so many to choose from but we have tagged 24 which we will whittle down a little for the final …

A sneak preview

18th August 2015

I’ve a contemporary scheme currently being built by Tom & his great crew that I’m so delighted with I thought I’d share. It’s a long garden that used to have virtually nothing but lawn & my scheme divides the space into interesting defined segments. Sketches are above & at the top. Below is how it was. As you can see there really wasn’t a great deal of interest, but for me a blank canvas is a brilliant start. I really wanted to break the space up into interesting chunks & give it a personality. My clients love contemporary & wanted …

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 …

Chelsea Award Winning Garden Design