A new garden design on my drawing board amongst other news

14th July 2025

Very busy recently – as usual – with some lovely new work to tax my design skills. There is a Manor house in my work queue which I’m looking forward to starting. Meantime, here is a new garden design that is currently on my drawing board for a pretty house in Goring, Berkshire. My clients bought the house next door so my job has been to amalgamate both plots to not only look fabulous throughout the seasons but provide shelter, various entertaining spaces & great sight lines… …& here is an axonometric sketch of how it might look. The pool …

I visited a recently completed & quite wonderful architectural garden I designed in Old Amersham

1st July 2025

I took Bruno my beautiful Briard to see a recently completed architectural garden I designed yesterday in Old Amersham. It is a courtyard style garden on 3 levels to suit the modern architecture of the new passive house. It is a structured scheme of contemporary ‘garden rooms’ & sight-lines – with plenty of interest & areas to sit & admire & enjoy. This photo below shows the bespoke seating area beside the modern conservatory. There are both steps & a slope for easy access to all levels however able you are… I had arranged to meet James – a professional …

Buying mature trees & topiary @ fabulous trade nurseries

29th October 2024

Buying mature trees & topiary for clients is a real perk of my job. I get to go to wonderful places & buy fantastic specimen trees – some so enormous we have to plant them with the aid of a crane. Last week I went with Tom to find trees & topiary for my Bath project currently being built by his team. This is one of my drawings of my design. It is a courtyard garden behind one of the fabulous classical Georgian facades at this elegant townhouse just near the Royal Crescent. My aim is for the garden to …

Designing my own gardens

16th October 2023

I do love a project! We have moved house several times over the years where we have gutted & redesigned the house & the garden too. It’s fun to design it all but I also really like to put my stamp on a place. Everyone has their own distinctive taste & style & I’m no exception. I thought I’d show you a few of my own gardens I’ve designed & built over the years… Henley on Thames We bought a townhouse right in the centre of Henley as we wanted to be able to walk everywhere & enjoy all that …

A Cotswold garden site visit today

10th April 2019

It’s a lovely life being a garden designer & today was no exception. I visited a large Cotswold garden & despite being blasted by freezing cold wind & a threatening grey sky I was delighted with what I saw. Last time I was there there was a great deal of brown as it had all been seeded. Being forty acres that’s a lot of brown! It’s still really early spring but you can see it all coming to life & the structure is as I had hoped. Below I have planted Prunus Serrula trees through gravel for structural interest whilst …

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 …

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

Chelsea Award Winning Garden Design