I had a couple of emails from the clients I worked with in Leeds last week with the first pictures of their new garden in its creation.  It’s been a little while since I went up to visit them for one of my Designer In Your Home sessions, but work has finally started and the landscaper and digger moved in last Monday to get cracking.  What I love about this project is that I was able to help my client to see the potential of their garden and they have taken everything on board and are really excited about working with their landscaper to bring the garden to life.

When we spent the day together back in the Autumn, we created the new design together so that it incorporated all the things they loved about their existing garden and elevated them to the next level.  The brick pergola for example was already gorgeous but the areas around it needed some reconfiguration that will make it a real feature that they will use and admire.

The build phase has only just started, but look how lifting the paving from around the brick pillars has brought the whole pergola to life.  The new sub-base has been laid and already you get a real sense of how it’s going to look when the new pathway has been finished and there’s planting either side.  There was no reason to walk underneath the pergola before so this change will make quite a dramatic impact on the way they move through the garden.

As you can see, access was quite tight at the side of the house but the landscaper still managed to get a mini-digger round to speed things up.  The lawn has been scraped off and the paving has been lifted.  I love the first bit when the old tired elements are removed and cleared…it creates the blank canvass on which the new garden will start to evolve.

I’m so looking forward to seeing the next photographic installments – it’s a bit too far to pop round and take a look!

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

It’s been a couple months since the hard landscaping elements have been finished for my project in Sutton but with spring now upon us, I have been thinking about the planting phase of the project which is likely to happen in early April. Read more

February was a really exciting month for me mostly because I finally got to visit my client in France.  As well as the trip down to La Rochelle we decided to visit our family house in Brittany which we share with my partner’s brother and sister.  Of course we chose the coldest week to be there – the temperature in La Rochelle was -10, even the sea in the harbour was frozen, something I’ve never seen before! Read more

March sees the official start of spring and although the early focus in the garden is on the appearance of bulbs, there are other plants that really shine at this time of year. Read more

I have been chipping away at “my client” over the past couple of years and I am so excited that finally we are going to do something with our very uninspiring front garden.  It’s really quite small, but we have space for one small car and there is scope to introduce a more attractive area outside the lounge window.  As work will commence at some point in March, I thought you might like to see the plans.  This is how it looks now… Read more

I spent a wonderful morning last Friday at Pots and Pithoi in West Sussex. I love everything about it, the beautiful old buildings and courtyard, the gorgeous gifts and homeware and, most of all, the amazing Cretan pots and urns that they are famous for. Read more

Deciding how you want to move around your garden is one of the defining moments in its creation.  The very act of walking around the space on paper has this amazing ability to make you start thinking about the design in a three dimentional way.  I think this is probably because you know what your garden looks and feels like before you start the design process so you are familiar with it already even if it doesn’t really inspire you. Read more

So many gardens are underutilised and undervalued.  If you think about it, most out of City gardens are at least as big as the whole floor space of the house and many are 2-3 times bigger, sometimes larger – it’s absolutely crazy not to use the space! Read more

Depending on where you live, you’ll either want to maximise a gorgeous view across the landscape or shut out what’s beyond your fence completely.  My garden is certainly in the latter category – we have houses all around us so when I designed the garden it was really important to think about screening.  But what if, rather than a 1970’s semi, one of those houses was an old manor house or an architecturally interesting building that I found really inspiring?…well, I’d probably still want some privacy, but I’d also want to make a feature of that view. Read more