Juniperus_communis_for_packets Salix Viminalis Sloe Nature Crop Berry 39372 Hazel Photo 4083759 Small garden, big impact – here’s how to plant the right tree in the right place to help combat global warming from home and give your garden some wonder habitat for wildlife.   I’m sure you know planting trees can help against climate change: Each tree in your garden will filter the air around it, absorbing pollutants and locking up carbon in its trunk, roots and soil. It can slow the fall of heavy rain and help drink up water from intense storms. It can scatter the sun’s hot rays ..read more

Adding colour with confidence Try to think like an artist and paint a picture with colours in your garden. Create drama and interest in your garden by planting spots of your favourite colour throughout the garden: a clump close to the house, another in the middle and more at the end of the garden. The recurring colour will draw the eye through your landscape and give your garden a cohesive feel. To add an extra pro touch, get inspired by nature and use different plants which contain the same colour to help bring a scheme together, for example the Iris ‘Indian Chief‘ in my garden has the same ..read more

I’ve been banging on about nature, letting your garden go wild and being a lazy gardener for some time now, and this autumn, winter & early spring I have really excelled myself. I have been very lazy indeed. With the exception of the lawn; which is generally my husband’s domain; I did nothing this season in the garden until April, I resisted the urge to tidy, which wasn’t at all difficult. Every plant left to seed. The borders unweeded, grasses untidy and uncut.  The result? A very untidy garden, absolutely bursting with life! We have had more birds in our garden than I can ever remem ..read more

Low Maintenance Planting Let go of your gardening guilt Guilt plays a huge part in our lives today. We are encouraged more than ever by TV, social media, and images all around us to feel that what and who we are is less than we should be. We feel guilty when we eat ‘bad’ food, we feel guilty that we aren’t living the perfect life, and we feel guilty if our gardens don’t look like the ones on Gardeners’ World. It is worth remembering that gardening programs with beautiful perfect gardens are not real life. They are there to inspire, yes, but it isn’t real. Huge teams of people prepare fo ..read more

How to plan your low maintenance garden As a self- confessed Lazy gardener and an experienced garden designer, I want to pass on a few tips about planning your garden; that will help you have an easier garden to look after in years to come. We all have so little time these days. But plan well and your garden will be a space you can spend more time relaxing in than working on. The more time you spend on planning the less time you will need to spend putting right your mistakes.  If you are in a new property, do not rush into any major changes until you have seen a few seasons go by. Make a ..read more

Are you struggling with one or more of these issues? I often see my job as a garden designer as a problem solver, but I’ve never listed all the problems that I have solved before. I was set a challenge to list as many problems as I could think of that I have solved for clients over the last 15 years.  It was a very interesting exercise, and once I had 90 problems I grouped them into 3 main areas, they were: Physical or structural problems These problems require practical solutions. For example There may be a slope in the garden that needs leveling, with retaining walls, or steps. A new f ..read more

10 things we can do in our own little haven You might think that climate change is all to do with pollution and gases and recycling, and you would be right. It is affecting all of us. Every year, the wet bits get wetter, the hot bits hotter and the dry parts dryer (yes I am still talking about the weather). As a garden designer I have really noticed how later winter has become and how early spring arrives.  Where once we would have stopped mowing the lawn in October, we are now still going in December. We can all do our bit in our own plot of land or even balcony to help protect ourselves ..read more

Stepping up As a garden designer it is a rare thing to work on a totally flat garden, there are generally slopes somewhere, toward the house, away from the house, and even from one side to the other. Sometimes these slopes can really obvious at other times be almost imperceptible, until you want to build something flat on it, and then we need to use our training to work out a solution, it might mean a retaining wall to hold back soil, it might need terracing but if you want to access all parts of the garden it will most definitely mean steps. The most important factor of any set of steps is th ..read more

Hedges – What should you choose and why they are important. A quick list of dos and don’ts and some new ideas (you may, or may not have heard) A lovely client of mine; who found me because of my articles in a magazine is looking for ideas for a new hedge and encouraged me to write a piece to help others like him. – Thanks Ron. Things to think about before you buy. Why? The first question we must always ask is what to do you want the hedge to do? We have hedges for a variety of different reasons. In the front garden it offers privacy, shelter from wind, a clear boundary division, to block ou ..read more

Do it in your own style 5 tips to great out door entertaining. With Summer approaching and covid19 restrictions relaxing, we will be entertaining in our gardens in no time, but this may be a sign of the future, for some time, just like Flu infection rates may rise and fall and eating with our friends indoors may be an on and off scenario. So how do you make an outdoor eating area that works all year round. Think about when and where you want to entertain. Any eating area doesn’t want to be too far away from the kitchen, but in a small suburban garden like mine this can be at the far end of t ..read more