A new garden for a barn conversion

18th August 2015

I love doing small gardens as they are very satisfying. They are relatively quick to build (I often design very large estates which are implemented over several years in some cases) & the before & after shots are always amazing. With small gardens everything counts & the whole scheme must work throughout the seasons, day & night, back to front & so on. This counts for all gardens of course but more so here as nothing is hidden; I don’t do mini wild flower meadows for example as I don’t believe a small garden can afford such temporary beauty. I …

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 …

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

Quite a week last week!

19th March 2015

I have been working at least 6 days a week lately to try & keep up with an amazing workload – I’m not complaining – truly! Just apologising for not writing a blog for yonks & explaining what a nightmare it is when I lose a day to ‘unforeseen circumstances’… In case you hadn’t guessed, my car died in London in the middle lane of the A40 just by Madame Tussauds on my way to see a client. I had a full day planned with several meetings but alarmingly spent a great deal of it directing traffic away from my …

Happy New Year!

20th January 2015

I know I’ve been extremely quiet of late so apologies to those who follow my blogs – I can’t always find the time to write about what I’m up to aswell as getting on with what I’m paid to do! I am having the best year ever as I’m so inundated with fantastic work.Thank you so much to all my super clients old & new for trusting me with your gardens. How I love my job – I am one lucky designer. I’m juggling quite a few different schemes at present & have some lined up too. Here’s what I’m …

Buying mature trees for Autumn colour

5th November 2014

Last Monday I spent the day at Hilliers tree nursery in Ampfield, Hampshire. They are a terrific source of British field grown trees & are fairly local to me which is all great. As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m working on a substantial Acer glade for my client Jane, so went with my colleague Rob Jones of The Garden Design Co Ltd as he & his team are implementing the scheme for her. We had a wish list of what we wanted & had reserved some on principle but, it’s really important when buying large expensive specimens that you are really …

Latest News

10th October 2014

Latest News I have been busy on so many projects I’ve not had time to update my behind the scenes section so here’s a brief update of what I’ve been doing… I am part way through a design for a very large (100 acre) estate in the Cotswolds. My client won’t be moving in for a couple of years & it is currently a building site but forward thinking such as this means we can design & get the landscape establishing first. There’s a lake (see above plan) for example which will have a couple of islands & maybe some …

A walled garden in Oxfordshire

15th August 2014

I’ve been really excited about this project as it’s been quite a long time in the making & the difference has been immense. It’s now virtually finished & my delighted clients let me take some photos last week. Here a before & after shots. They show my clients’ office from the house… Quite a difference! We had to lose the tree unfortunately & it wasn’t an easy decision but it was really worth it in the end. This was such a lovely project to design – a virtually blank canvas within a walled garden & beautiful buildings in the Oxfordshire …

Formal Country Garden

4th July 2014

I designed a formal country garden for my clients Anne & Andrew back in 2008 for their substantial plot in Berkshire. The grounds include paddocks for their daughters’ horses where they wanted some large heritage trees such as oak & walnut. It was quite fun too as Andrew’s hobby is flying helicopters so I had to consider a suitable landing spot. Here is the plan I drew – It is now quite mature & when I visited a couple of days ago was looking just fabulous – The lakes weren’t complete last time I visited so it was wonderful to …

A busy week & it’s only Wednesday!

25th June 2014

I’m really not great at this blogging malarky so do apologise for their infrequency but I do hope when I do get around to them, they are worth the read? This week I have been given the go ahead for three new schemes, I presented another to Jane, my very loyal & lovely client from Buckinghamshire & am off to see three more jobs this week. Can’t keep up but delighted to be so popular! Nearly forgot to say I visited “GROW” on Hampstead Heath too on Sunday. A lovely day out & good to see my friend Marnie Moyle …

Chelsea Award Winning Garden Design