A garden I designed for a large Surrey house is nearing completion; here are some photos I took there last week (starting with a ‘before’!) The house as you can see was lovely but in need of modernisation and this view, above, was taken from the entrance of the drive – so there was no […]
GARDEN DESIGN BLOG. IDEAS, INSPIRATION AND NEWS
Please do browse my garden design blog; in it you’ll find garden ideas, inspiration and product reviews, reports from Shows including the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, pretty pictures from places I’ve been, a bit of arty stuff (paintings and drawings) and anything else I find interesting that I think you might enjoy too.
Ohio lecture tour!
I’ve just come back from a trip to Ohio where I was delivering a series of lectures at Lakeside Chautauqua on the shores of Lake Erie, was guest of honour at various events at the Governor’s Residence in Columbus and in between times was visiting gardens and natural habitats and meeting local experts including Guy Denny, […]
Italian Garden Tour
I have just a couple of spaces left for the Italian Garden tour taking place in April; this is an all inclusive luxury 5 night holiday where you can join me for an exclusive tour of some of the best gardens in Tuscany. From personal knowledge of the area, I have selected gardens that I […]
Rye sketchbook
I spent last weekend on the coast at Rye, dodging the downpours for some inspirational walks and spending the evenings creating a small sketchbook of compressed charcoal drawings from photos taken during the day. Some of the drawings were from Camber sands, and some from Rye Harbour nature reserve, so I was able to explore […]
Current work: new entrance to large garden
This morning I had a site visit to a large garden I’ve been working on over the last 6 months or so. The first major part of the garden to be tackled was the entrance; as you can see from the before photo below, it was rather uninspiring with a bank with a basic fence […]
recent life drawings
Once a month I do a life drawing session with the Sussex Road Art group in Worthing and I thought you might like to see what I produced yesterday; I’ve been trialling working with compressed charcoal and am really enjoying the depth of tone you can achieve with it. These poses were three quarters of […]
Painting at the weekend
I did a bit of painting at the weekend, exploring some ideas on light and seascapes. The canvases were small, just 200mm square, so I worked them all up at the same time. Still a long way to go on the learning curve, but it’s fun to do! […]
Tuscany Gardens tour
I’ve recently come back from planning and guiding a tour of Tuscan gardens for the Emerita First Lady of Ohio Hope Taft and her fundraising group for the Ohio Heritage Garden, which she created at the Governor’s Residence while in office. This is the third tour that I’ve planned for this group; the first being […]
Modern natural garden design
A little while ago I designed a small Show Garden for Jackson’s Fencing to showcase their products in a new way. I took the opportunity to play with elements that are close to my heart, specifically working with nature to create areas of sustainable pseudo-naturalistic planting, what I like to call ‘modern natural garden design’. […]
SOCIETY OF GARDEN DESIGNERS AWARDS: MEDIUM RESIDENTIAL GARDEN AND JUDGES AWARD WINNER!
I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to tell you that at the Society of Garden Designers’ Awards on Friday night, I was awarded both the Medium Residential Garden Award and the Judges Award, which you can read about below. The awards are for a private garden in Somerset, you can find it in my portfolio […]