Two Small Gardens – two different styles and briefs…

The fun part in our role as garden designers is the vast variety of gardens we see, ranging from window boxes to very large gardens and everything in between. Coupled with this is the range of ideas and styles requested by clients. Our job is to interpret their...

Trained Fruit: a garden design tool, think design as well as taste…

Imagine wandering through your own orchard, enjoying spring blossom and the buzz of bees, the laughter of children playing amongst the trees, picking ripe fruit in the autumn.  Lovely as it sounds, most of us have much smaller gardens, but you can work them hard and...
Add Spring Colour to Winter Planting for a Dreich Late Winter Day…

Add Spring Colour to Winter Planting for a Dreich Late Winter Day…

As the year moves through February and March you can have another layer of colour and interest to your winter planting with additional shrubs and early flowering spring bulbs. Ribes sanguineum is a really tough early flowering shrub (March/April) usually seen with...
Winter Planting to add Structure, Colour and Cheer…

Winter Planting to add Structure, Colour and Cheer…

January is not my favourite month and some years it seems longer than 31 days.  But as the month pushes forward it is cheering to see the day light lasting a little longer each day.  In my own front garden I am determined to add to the cheer by planting colourful,...
Front Gardens: Do you have Colour 365 Days a Year?

Front Gardens: Do you have Colour 365 Days a Year?

How many plants do you have in bloom in your garden in January? You will be astounded to know Tresco Abbey Gardens in the Scilly Isles had 289 on the 7th January. Aah – to have their climate. But even as winter is upon us, in Scotland it is possible to have...
Spring Bling…

Spring Bling…

Inspired by my visit in Spring ’16 to Keukenhof Park just outside Amsterdam and seeing 7 million bulbs in bloom, last October we planted 1000 bulbs in a plant bed in our front garden under some deciduous shrubs.  The bulbs we planted were a special mix called...