The Grown Up Garden Shed

Gone are the days when a garden shed is only used for lawn mowers and rakes – today this humble structure can be reinvented  as a writers retreat, guest house or even a tea room. It can be ultra contemporary, traditional or rustic. Indeed the possibilities are only limited by your imagination. For those of…

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The Role of a Garden Designer

"I charge extra for marriage counselling" I quipped as husband and wife gave me two contradictory lists of 'must have's' for their new garden. We were all laughing but it's not the first time that I have played referee when meeting design clients. Have you considered hiring a designer but wondered how much it would…

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A Unique Rose Garden

  How do you use roses in your garden? Do you have a traditional, formal rose garden bordered with low boxwood hedges? Or are they part of a mixed border where they jostle with perennials such as delphiniums and phlox? Perhaps you prefer climbing roses and allow them to scramble up pergolas or use them…

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Garden Emergencies

Help! As a designer there is one fundamental expectation when friends and clients visit; that my garden will be alive. This year that has been questionable as we've battled a plague of voles, unrelenting high temperatures, unprecedented drought and recovery from last winter which although mild arrived with a drop in temperature of twenty degrees or…

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Captivating Ideas from a Petite Garden

I wrote a post recently for my other blog Fine Foliage (co-authored with Christina Salwitz) called The Ones That Got Away. You see Christina and I are on the final countdown for our new book with Timber Press (due out 9/2016) and scrambling to get as many mouth watering ideas photographed and written up as possible, but…

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