It was my birthday a few weeks ago so we went to the Cotswolds for the weekend, spent the night in a lovely country hotel and then decided to meander around Blenheim Palace gardens on the Sunday.  I’ve been to Blenheim many times, but this is the first time I’ve ever had chance to look at the gardens.

The Blenheim Palace grounds were designed by Capability Brown in the 1760s but the more formal gardens were added by the 9th Duke of Marlborough in the 1920s, with help of the French Landscape Architect Achille Duchêne.

It took five years to build the Water Terraces which are very formal and reminiscent of the Parterre d’Eau at Versaille.  These are very formal gardens, but feel right with the dominating architecture of the palace.

The Italian Garden is the Duke’s private garden and can be seen by a public walkway.  Clipped box and yew forms the structure of this garden which is both formal and architectural.

I loved the formality of the garden but the parkland beyond was gorgeous too…

This month’s Garden Flowers post, which I write with Rona Wheeldon of Flowerona features the top three new plants in the Plant of the Year Award at this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Read more

A couple of weeks ago I spent the day in Kent with a friend on mine photographing wild flowers.  We attended a workshop run by local professional photographer Robert Canis who knew exactly where the best flowers were – we had a great time! Read more

I featured James  Doran-Webb’s work following last year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show and it was great to chat to him again this year. Read more

Part four of my RHS Chelsea Flower 2013 coverage features some more of the main show gardens, starting with Jo Thompson’s garden for The Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA). Read more

I took a lot of images of the M&G Garden, Windows Through Time, which was designed and built by Roger Platts. Read more

Welcome to part two of my taste of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2013.  Today I am featuring three more of the main show gardens, each with something that I found inspiring. Read more

I had a great day at Chelsea today – lots of inspiring things to see and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you this week. Read more

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show opens next week and I can’t wait to visit on Monday.  If you read my blog regularly then you’ll know this is my favourite show of the year – for those involved in the creation of the show gardens and floral exhibits, they’ll be feeling truly exhausted by now but I hope they’re also feeling positive and energised. Read more

This month’s Garden Flowers post, which I write with Rona Wheeldon of Flowerona, features the lily of the valley. Read more