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Click on a blog post to see wonderful photos.
Click on a blog post to see wonderful photos.
Creating a Contemporary Garden Design
If your home has the clean and minimalist design of the modern home, you’ll be looking for a garden that reflects that style. After all, the garden is an outdoor space connecting us to nature, but also providing an extension of the home in which to relax and entertain. It should be personal yet connect with the surrounding landscape -- while offering a level of gardening maintenance that suits your lifestyle. With thoughtful use in planting and garden fixtures, you can include colour and warmth to a contemporary garden design. Planting to Add Warmth Modern design often employs stone [...]
The Japanese Garden
This classic garden provides a calm refuge with natural elements that encourage contemplation and symbolize renewal, wonder, and beauty. Stones are symbols of longevity and the ever-present forces of nature, providing the garden with an anchor. With stones, we can create a landscape for cascading water, with small hills, a stream, and a pond. Image by Drobek226 from Pixabay Water symbolizes continuity with the hereafter. Cascading water, streams and ponds with koi or carp fish providing a flash of gold colour. The cascades also have a practical purpose, as clear, circulating water helps keep the air fresh during summer months. [...]
Designing Your Dream Cottage Garden
For many of us, the image of the cottage garden with its warm colours, its links to a time gone by, and its self-sufficiency is idyllic. Yet this style of garden is in reach of us all, however small or large the plot. While the romantic image of the cottage garden may have certain defining features, the beauty within the design is there are no rules. With a little planning and minimal upkeep you can create the garden of your dreams. Features of a Cottage Garden This traditional style of garden was born out of practicality and most people will [...]
Garden Planning? Consider Sand & Gravel
By planning our gardens with sustainability in mind, we help to preserve natural resources and take some of the pressure off the natural environment. Thoughtful landscaping can encourage wildlife, reduce water use, prevent soil erosion and reduce the need for chemical fertilisers and pesticides. By planning with nature in mind you can use the plants and materials which best utilise your garden plot while also best helping the natural environment. Sand and gravel are two of the more commonly used materials in garden design and with a little thought to how you employ them and their source you can make [...]
Small Trees for the Garden
Trees add so much character to a garden. The abundant varieties of trees and shrubs available means even the smallest of gardens can enjoy the pleasures trees add to any plot. However, research is key to finding the best trees for your garden, the varieties best suited for your garden space and soil, plus the amount of sunlight the garden receives. Consider the height a tree will reach as it matures and how this will affect the rest of the garden and any nearby buildings. Think about what you want from the tree, as perhaps you may want it for [...]
Rare plants man- Garden Design
The Rare Plants Man When he could hardly move around his Henfield back garden, Steve Law’s decided to relocate his nursery of Rare Plants. With a generous start up grant from one of his gardening clients, Miss Green, he moved to Small Dole in 2011 and built a whole succession of sheds, polytunnels and raised beds to commit to his passion- rare plants. He is still moved today when he talks about the help Miss Green gave him. “She was 97 and loved her plants. I couldn’t have done it without her”. Working as a gardener half the week, he [...]
Autumn Light- Garden Design
I helped my client Paul Craig design his garden. He already had some interesting and original ideas and together we decided on the right plant for the right place. We used a round corten steel sculpture for a focal point and chose unusual plants like tree ferns, Senecio Angle's Wings and Cannas in amongst more traditional prairie planting making sure there was colour all through the seasons. The Deschampsia Goldtau grass, surrounding the new pool, captures the afternoon sun.
April is the coolest Month
Giving your garden the Spring it deserves April is the busiest time of the year so there are lots of Shoulds in April. You should have cleared the last of the Winter debris and now begin sowing and planting in earnest. You should be thinking of planting up Summer bulbs and bedding. You should be putting down the last of your mulch on beds to prevent Spring weeds. You should be thinking of buying in some colourful plants for the late Spring and Summer. BUT- You should also, like an enormous bath sponge, be soaking up the beauty of nature. [...]