I spend more time looking at my garden than actually being in it; don’t get me wrong I am a hardy gardener but I work from home with my drawing board positioned so I can look onto the garden with the landscape beyond. From the house, same thing, different view: I look out onto the garden as I wash up, draw the curtains in the morning, relax in the new ‘plant room’….
For me I want to look onto a tidy garden with simple lines and structural planting which will offer glimpses of what is beyond as well as year round interest in terms of colour and shape. I want my eye to be gently distracted but not so much so that I can’t think, process thoughts and come up with new ideas involved with my work.
I see a lot of gardens which are collections of plants set in rather untidy and certainly un-shapely borders rather than more planned uncluttered spaces showing off well chosen groups of plants which are in harmony with their location; spaces and plants working together. I also see designed gardens which fall down most disappointingly when I examine the planted beds.
Everything in our lives these days is designed, from our bathroom taps to our mobile phones to our cars, why shouldn’t this be so for our gardens too? (however I understand that some people just enjoy plants for what they are rather than how they are arranged). What I offer is to maximise your resources, if what you have isn’t working for you. I spend time with clients discussing their wants and needs, likes and dislikes; we bounce ideas off each other turning problems into opportunities, by marrying garden design with plant design I aim to create relaxing and fulfilling areas where the results add up to more than the sum of the parts.