Filtered by: Garden Planting
Amanda Patton talks garden flower design, plant design and landscape gardening
A garden of two pergolas
I’ve just been back to visit a garden I finished earlier this year, and thought you might like to see. Before I started, the garden had some uncomfortable slopes, with a 4m drop from top to bottom, and also a drop from one side to the other of nearly 2m; added to which the neighbours had built [...]
John Makepeace’s garden of grasses, Dorset
I had a bit of a busman’s holiday last Sunday, visiting the eminent furniture maker John Makepeace’s garden in Beaminster. It’s always interesting seeing how a craftsman in one medium transfers ideas and concepts into another, and the Makepeace garden is no exception. I suppose it’s no surprise that there are few straight lines, given that [...]
update to Taunton garden
I’ve just been back to visit the garden I designed at Trull, near Taunton in Somerset, a year after completion. You can see pictures of this garden as it’s being built (and as it was before) in my blog archive for February 2010. If you remember, the box knot was already in place, and it gives a [...]
Chelsea flower show 2011
I’ve just come back from two days at the show – lucky me! You can catch my Monday morning broadcast for BBC Somerset during the next week on their website’s Listen Again feature (see ‘things I like’ for link). This is my 11th successive visit to Chelsea and one of the most interesting things over the years has [...]
the delights of fading flowers
When I was an impoverished art student, I took to painting dead flowers. I don’t think it was the fact that I couldn’t often afford to replace any flowers I bought that led me to paint them, more that there was some intrinsic beauty in them that captivated me. This painting (below) was one of [...]
“I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers” Claude Monet
Call me an old romantic but I’m a bit of a sucker for tulips. I love the way they are transformed from tight bud to over-the-top bloom, with an intensity and depth of colour almost unparalleled in the plant world. It’s no wonder so many painters love them, though it’s not easy to capture the luminescence and silkiness [...]
The 2010 Great Garden Trail
I was in London yesterday at the garden I designed in Bow http://www.amandapatton.co.uk/portfolio/bow/ which was open to the public under the Great London Garden Trail. This was rather an unusual garden opening, in that the Trail featured just 10 gardens, each of which had been professionally designed by a Registered Member of the Society of Garden Designers. As [...]
Amelanchier lamarckii
One of the things I love about gardening is the thrill of anticipation. While I’m not immune to the instant gratification of an immediate make-over, nothing quite beats going out every day to see how a favourite plant is doing, watching tiny growth each day, waiting for the moment when the ever fattening buds will burst. [...]
Planting combination for annual flowers
During my monthly broadcast on BBC Somerset this morning I mentioned a planting combination for annuals, grown easily from seed. The beauty of growing annuals is that you can try out different colour and texture combinations, without great expense, and you can try something new each year. The planting mix that I have recommended will give [...]