March has been a very full month – the amazing warm and sunny weather seems to have ignited the garden world earlier than usual so I have been working hard to keep up with everything.  I love writing this monthly post because it makes me take stock and realise what I’ve achieved in the month – when you’re busy it’s often difficult to see what you’ve actually achieved!

I have 2 highlights this month.  The first is that I have been asked to design the 2012 Chelsea Flower Show stand for English Garden Joinery – we’ve already met to start the ball rolling and I’ll obviously share this with you when we have agreed on the design.  The stand will only be 6m x 3m so it’s really important that we maximise the space, show off what they can do whilst attracting people to the stand – we want it to feel like a garden, not a stand full of timber objects.

The other main highlight is that I ran my first Design Your Own Garden workshop at The Medicine Garden in Cobham with MakeMe Workshops.  It went really well and I received some great feedback – the next one is Saturday 21st April and there are just 3 places left.  I very stupidly forgot to take my camera so you’ll have to wait until the next one to see some pictures!

Early on in the month I met with Rosie Bray, a wonderful Surrey based photographer who loves to photograph families and children and who also has a real passion for the garden.  Often she photographs families in their own garden so we’ve been talking about how we might be able to work together in the future.

I also had a cup of coffee with Andrew Wilson, one of the founding directors of the London College of Garden Design, practising Garden Designer and RHS Chelsea Flower Show Judge.  Andrew redesigned the Rose Garden at Savill Garden so it seemed appropriate to meet him there – good coffee and cake there too!  I will be writing a separate post about our discussion soon so I won’t say too much about it here.

At the Society of Garden Designer’s cluster group meeting the topic was “costing from a landscaper’s perspective” and David Dodds of The Outdoor Room gave a very informative talk to the group.  It generated much valuable discussion afterwards – topics of this nature are not always the most inspiring (we’d all much rather be talking about design inspiration I’m sure) but costing is such an important part of any garden project so it was brilliant to be able to talk it through.

On the business networking front, the speaker at the Horsley Network this month was Andrew Smith of Andrew Smith Research and the topic was “Customer feedback: finding out what your customers think of you”.  It was good to take stock and really think about how we should be asking our clients for feedback and, once we have it, what to do with it.

On 27th March I was invited to the Ottershaw/Chertsey Athena Network meeting to speak about Garden Design and I’ve had some great feedback including an enquiry for a consultation from one of the group members.

A couple of weeks ago I was approached by a student at Merrist Wood College who, as part of her degree course, has to shadow a garden design project.  My client in Sutton kindly agreed to take part so she has interviewed us both along with the contractors who built the garden.  It’s tough being a student when everything’s new so I was delighted to be able to help out.

I have now finished the design for my French project and will blogging the final drawing later this week.  My client wanted one of the areas around the house to have a modern Japanese feel to it so I popped to the Lindley Library at RHS Garden Wisley for some inspiration.  It’s a great resource for all things garden related and is open to all RHS members to use.

In March I met up 2 new clients to take a full brief and 4 potential new clients, I carried out 1 survey and went to see the winner of a Garden Design Consultation that I donated to a charity event in aid of Cancer Research.  I have been working on 3 design projects and preparing everything for planting at my project in Sutton on Thursday this week.  I also helped a friend and design colleague to plant up a roof terrace in central London which involved getting 2.5 tonnes of topsoil up on to the terrace – thank goodness for the goods lift!

And last, but by no means least, I attended the Landscape Show with Rona Wheeldon of Flowerona – it was great to meet new people and catch up with some that I already know.  It’s always important to keep up with new products and services in the industry so industry exhibitions are really useful events to attend.  The highlight of the day for me was the lecture by Alex Denman, Cheslea Flower Show Manager, about designing a Chelsea Show Garden.

In this month’s Garden Flowers blog post which I write with blogger and freelance writer, Rona Wheeldon, we’re looking at perhaps one of the lesser well-known garden plants, the flowering currant. Read more

I hope you’ve been enjoying the last few blog posts about the construction of my front garden.  The hard landscaping was finished yesterday and it’s looking gorgeous now even without plants in the ground or paint on the rendered walls.  I wanted the share the last 2 days of construction with you because the transformation yesterday once the gravel went in was quite dramatic. Read more

I can’t believe how quickly my front garden is taking shape and by tomorrow the hard landscaping should be finished ready for planting.  So far I have shown you the progress over the first three days so this will bring you up to date with what it looked like when the guys left site on Friday evening. Read more

Whilst I have been out and about at various meetings this week, progress has continued in my front garden.  So far we have around 20 mins of time-lapsed video so I think it will need some serious editing before I post it here for you to see!  Days 2 and 3 were predominantly focussed on the walls and excavation of soil to prepare for the sub-base which is being installed as I write. Read more

The construction phase of my own front garden started yesterday and as I don’t often get to see the daily progress on a project, I thought it would be a nice idea to share each stage with you.  It’s only a small space really, but there was quite a bit of clearance to do and already we have filled one skip and we have arranged for a replacement tomorrow. Read more

I was reading a very old copy of The Times newspaper earlier this week which we brought my partner’s parents on their Golden Wedding Anniversary as a momento of their wedding day. 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