Last week I went to Thornhayes nursery near Honiton in Devon.  You may think it’s rather a long way to go shopping, but as I source most of the plants for my projects through Forton Nursery (owned by my parents) we often work with growers in the West Country.  I was down visiting anyway so I went with my dad to choose the Acer griseum that I will be planting in my London garden project this week.

We were taken by the owner, Kevin Croucher, to the field where the Acer griseum are grown so that we could pick out the one we wanted.  As we are in bare root season, they lifted it for us that afternoon and wrapped the root ready for us to collect the following day.

I know that trees can be brought from your local garden centre, but you’ll have much more choice if you go to a specialist nursery.  Like many tree nurseries, Thornhayes sell directly to the public so there’s nothing to stop you going to pick out the tree you want.

Thornhayes also offer container grown trees.  Buying trees in this way means that you can plant them at any point in the year, even when the trees are in leaf, although like for like they are more expensive than bare root specimens.

Whilst we were there, I also selected 2 container grown multi-stem specimen Betula albosinensis  (Chinese Red Birch) which will be planted at my sutton project this week.  The rest of the planting will be carried out in the Spring.

Specialist nurseries are also a great source of information.  As well as guidance about planting, they will be able to help you to select an appropriate specimen for your garden.

I had to go to Wisley yesterday afternoon so whilst I was there I decided to wiz round and see what was looking good.  Many of the perennials have been cut down and tidied up but many of the roses in the new rose garden were still in bloom and looking quite lovely.  I thought you might like to see the pictures I took  and I hope they brighten up your day! Read more

I made a site visit to my project in London last week which is starting to come together now.  If you remember, I was asked to redesign the terrace area following a house building project.  We’re now in week 4 of the construction phase of the project and I’m due to go in next week to plant – fingers crossed this mild weather continues for a bit longer! Read more

I met up with Rona Wheeldon of Flowerona yesterday and she was telling me that she was very surprised to see that her hyacinths in the garden had started to shoot.   She’s not the first person I’ve heard say this recently, I have a client who was saying the same thing about her garden. Read more

I love Nandina, an evergreen shrub with bushy bamboo-like foliage that turns purple in spring and winter.  It works really hard for its place in the garden because it has something different to offer in each of the seasons.  Read more

I often find design inspiration when I’m out and about.  Noticing hard landscaping elements is definitely an occupational hazard and normally at some point when I’m away on holiday there’ll be something I just have to take a picture of for future reference. Read more

You may remember me blogging about this project a while ago when I shared the final design and the planting design with you.  The construction phase of the project started last week and I made my first site visit yesterday to check on progress. Read more

I hope you’re enjoying my new monthly Garden Flowers series which I’m writing with Rona Wheeldon of Flowerona.  This month, we’re featuring a very unassuming but pretty plant, Cyclamen hederifolium.  Read more

If you read my blog post on Tuesday then you’ll know a little bit about this project already – a day in Leeds last Friday to work on a “Garden Designer in Your Home” project.  Today I ‘m going to talk to you about the process we went through to develop the design and of course show you the final drawings and concept sketches. Read more

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a couple in Leeds.  Although they had recently had their garden redesigned they just didn’t feel that the design reflected the brief they had given.  They decided that the best course of action was to try and work through a new design themselves but just didn’t know where to start.  During an internet search for paving, they stumbled across my blog and website and realised quite quickly that I am very passionate about working with my clients to create a garden that fits in with their personal style and requirements. Read more