Posts Tagged ‘Design your own garden’

It was the first week of my new garden styling and design course at The Decor Cafe yesterday.  I’m running it with friend and fellow designer, Sarah Speller, and it will run over three consecutive Tuesday mornings.

The idea is that by the end of the three weeks, each participant will know what their style is, how this can be translated into a design for their garden and how to move it forward.  We’ll also be looking at materials and plants, and we’ll go through some do’s and don’ts when it comes to choosing a contractor.

Yesterday, we kicked off with some beautiful garden images to break everyone in gently and to get them thinking about garden style.  Often people know what sort of space they like to visit or be in, but until you really try to hone in on what it is that “floats your boat”, it’s very difficult to move a design forward in a coherent way.

So we spent much of the morning pulling together a “mood board”.  This allowed Sarah and me to spend some time with people individually so that we could start to get an idea of the sorts of things that inspired and how these might translate into a design for their garden.

These sessions are always really fascinating as often the final mood boards represent something quite different to what the person creating it was expecting.  But that, of course, is why it’s such a powerful exercise!

Working with different clients over the years has really made me appreciate the different style options for a garden.  What I can appreciate as good and positive design wouldn’t necessarily be what I’d have in my own garden, but if I am to truly understand what it is that ignites their passion, then I don’t see a better way to do it.

Communicating in pictures is so much easier and as the mood board comes together there soon becomes an overall “picture” of what the style and “mood” of the garden should be.

More details about the workshop can be found on The Decor Cafe website

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