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 trees for a few projects. Unfortunately the weather was pretty dreadful but other than that it was great to visit my favourite nursery again. I went for two days – the first day I travelled with Rob Jones of The Garden Design Co & our client Ginni then I stayed in Brussels & met with Tom of TS Landscapes the next day to look for trees for another scheme. Here’s a little of what we found…

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

Rob is creating a scheme I designed for the 7 acre garden of a Georgian style property on the Oxfordshire/Buckinghamshire border & Tom is due to start on the 40 acre garden of a grade l listed manor house in Warwickshire. For me as a designer it’s fantastic to 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 & for Rob & Tom it means we’re creating exceptional unique gardens.

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 three images give you an idea of scale. On the left you’ll see Annick with her measuring stick. We bought twelve of these topiary taxus domes for Ginni & they will feature beautifully in her ‘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