Inspiration

Sponsored by Homebase, the Teenage Cancer Trust garden, designed by Joe Swift, was another of my favourite Main Avenue show gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show this year.  The garden was inspired by the power that plants and natural forms have on urban and suburban environments.  It was designed as a dry garden to give consideration to water sources and sustainability issues.

What I loved about this garden was the warmth of the timber and the complimentary planting which linked in with the water features and cedar sculpture at the back of the stand.  The cedar arches were gorgeous and helped to frame different views.  They also brilliantly created views when the garden was viewed at the side too.

The benches were gorgeous too – you can just about see one of them in the picture below.

I think what really brought the garden together was the brilliant planting, a warm palette of burgundy, rusty oranges and yellow which worked perfectly with the cedar archways and the copper bark of the trees.

This was another calm and peaceful garden that I could imagine spending time in.  Since I have worked so much with English Garden Joinery, it has really tuned me in to timber and the many ways is can be used in the garden…gorgeous!

As you know, I have been at the Cheslea Flower Show almost every day this week helping to man the English Garden Joinery stand.  In some ways this has been brilliant because I’ve been able to see different parts of the show on each of the days, but what it has meant is that time has been a bit of a luxury and I haven’t had the chance to write any blog posts about it. Read more

Last week Rona Wheeldon and I went along to the preview evening at The Garden Shop at Petersham Nurseries.  The Garden Shop is the new retail space that is designed exclusively for gardeners and is full of gorgeous plants and stylish garden accessories.  We arrived a little early so that we had chance to take some photographs – a brilliant place to hone the skills we’d learned with Clive Nichols a week or so ago! Read more

On Saturday I attended Clive Nichols’ garden photography workshop at Wakehurst Place with my good friend Rona Wheeldon.  Clive is a world renowned garden photographer so we knew we were in for a great day and I think I speak for us both when I say that it exceeded our expectations. Read more

Last Friday I visited Cardiff Flower Show for the first time with my friend Rona Wheeldon of Flowerona. The first thing that struck us was how friendly everyone was there – it had a local show feel to it and as well as the show gardens, floral marquee and show exhibitors that you see at all the RHS shows, there was also a craft market. Read more

I met up with Andrew Wilson a few weeks ago at Savill Garden – he redesigned the Rose Garden there so it seemed the most appropriate place to meet….and the coffee and cake’s good too! Read more

I popped into Wisley yesterday to make a visit to the Lindley library – I have been working on my project in France and I wanted to look up a few things about Japanese style gardens so that I can work on one of the areas near the house.  If you’re a member of the RHS you are also entitled to join the library, it’s a great resource for all things garden related. Read more

I went to the Landscape Show last Thursday with my friend Rona Wheeldon.  It’s always good to keep up to date with new products and services and it was great to see some familiar faces as well.  I will be introducing you to some of these over the coming weeks, but I first wanted to cover the brilliant talk “How to apply for a Garden at the Chelsea Flower Show” by Alex Denman, Show Manager at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Read more

I have been spending a bit of time in the garden over the last couple of weekends, tidying up and enjoying the warm sunshine.  I love this time of year when the new shoots start to appear and it always amazes me just how quickly things change – you can almost see progress every day and I love watching the early buds turn into vibrant leaves and blossom. Read more

If you read my blog post on Monday then you’ll know that I have been talking to some of the high profile designers in the country.  I’m really interested to learn what motivates, inspires and interests them and I thought you might like to share this with me. Read more