I have recently been commissioned by a local interior designer to design the entranceway to their new office.  Their business has just gone through a period of rapid growth and this has resulted in a garage conversion project to provide more office space for their team.

The new meeting room, where they will now meet with clients, looks out on to what was the hard standing outside the garage.  Because it is the main entrance to the office, it needs to be welcoming and inviting.  We also wanted to create a space where staff could sit out at lunchtime if they wanted to.

The adjacent courtyard between the office and their house is very “country manor” in style – York stone paving around a parterre of box hedging with a central water fountain.  Because the areas connect to eachother, it was really important to bring the same style and feel to the front courtyard.

This is the view as you approach the office from the driveway.  The planter at the end of the drive serves as a focal point  – there is an oil tank in the corner so access had to remain in tact and planting in this area was not therefore an option.

The entrance itself is a symmetrical parterre-style courtyard with simple planting and bench seating.  The terracotta urn provides interest from all viewing points whilst still allowing easy access to the office space.

The canopy of a large beech tree shades the whole area so it will be really important, when we get to the planting design, to choose the plants carefully.  It must look good at all times of the year so evergreen plants will have to be key.

Welcome to my new monthly series with floral blogger, Rona Wheeldon called Garden Flowers. Read more

Last week I met with a new client to take the brief for their garden project.  They are having building work done on the house and the front and back gardens will need to be modified so that they work with the new configuration of the house when it’s finished. Read more

You may remember that I blogged a while back about a terrace redesign for a London town house.  The house building project has very much taken priority over the past few weeks, but my clients are now ready to tackle the garden. Read more

I’ve written before about designing yourself a gorgeous terrace, when I gave you some tips to help you to get the most from your entertaining space. But what about the finer details? How do you make sure they’re right too?  What material you use on the terrace will of course affect the whole look and feel of the space so I thought it would be helpful to give you a few tips about choosing which to use. Read more

We garden designers often have to be flexible beasts to meet our clients expectations.  When it comes to the construction phase of a garden project some clients have a person or company in mind that they would like to use to build the garden for them.  More often than not, this will be the builder who did an excellent job with their house extension project and has worked for them on and off for years. Read more

I made my August visit to Loseley Park Garden last week and, as usual, it didn’t disappoint.  Just 4 weeks since my July visit, I was surprised once again to see how much it has changed. Read more

On Monday I presented a planting design to my client in Ashtead.  Sadly, she lost her husband a couple of years ago and because he was the “gardener” of the house, the planted areas in the back garden have become a bit tired and unkempt. Read more

August can be a challenging time in the garden as it’s an in-between stage in the flowering year.  Many of the early summer-flowering shrubs and perennials have finished and normally (although not the case  this year due to hot dry spring!) the later-flowering plants haven’t quite made an appearance. Read more

It has been 4 weeks since the build commenced at the project near Woking and on Friday I made a visit to site so that we could sign off the final setting out of the front garden and also to check the scale of the large archway at the side of the house. Read more