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A week of site visits

It’s definitely Winter here at Manor Farm Barn this week as we’ve had the first flurry of snow. It looked so pretty but didn’t last long sadly. The Winter sun has taken over showing the Hakonechloa off in it’s Autumn colour against the Cotswold stone… Busy busy with work as always – I have several projects being built at the moment so am spending my time travelling about visiting 3 separate sites & my clients both new & existing. On top of that I’m madly trying to get some drawing done. All good – it’s great to be busy – …

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Our own garden is being built at last!

After two years of being here, we have completed the work on the house & finally work has started on the garden. As you can see above, the magnificent Acer globosums arrived on the lorry last week. We were very excited & half the village came out to see what was going on! This is my husband posing for a photo. Here they are awaiting their new home. Aren’t they magnificent? I have loved this variety of tree for many years after seeing them in France in village squares providing shade. I took this photo below in 2014 in Provence …

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News in February 2020

2020 has been a great year so far. Firstly I’m very pleased to have been invited to be on The List by House & Garden. It’s a prestigious place to be & I am in impressive company so thank you very much House & Garden! I am also delighted to say I won the annual Houzz Best designer award 2020. It’s wonderful to open an email with exciting news so thank you to everyone at Houzz & all the people who follow my work there. Exciting news on the home front too – After two years of builders knocking our …

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A romantic & contemporary new garden

This quote I believe is by Alfred Lord Tennyson & the carving was commissioned by my client for his wife – I think it is beautiful. I’m not a poetry fan if I’m honest but I think this is just perfect & such a lovely gesture – so romantic & looks fabulous engraved in this lovely wide oak boardwalk. This is quite a sizeable scheme – not without issues as there is a considerable change in level from front to back. Although a serious headache I actually love to play with levels as the results can be amazing. They can …

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A new garden for a barn conversion

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 …

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