02. June 2016

just look at all the gorgeousness of rhs hyde hall at the moment! the dry garden is totally amazing, bursting with colour accented with the bright orange papavers, sunny yellow euphorbias and deep purple alliums. I hugged my favourite betula as we passed through the woodland walk and emerged to a sea of purple palavers. we took in the heavenly scent of the rosa "rhapsody in blue" as we walked up to the queen mothers garden where the children admired the swathes of alliums and played hide and...

10. April 2016

today was a productive one. among many other jobs we decided to create a new bench for our dinning room. we took an old wooden table top that was just too good to waste, cut it in half, sanded it to restore the beautiful wood and added some legs. we were toying with the idea of using hairpin legs to match the ones we used on our plywood table, but instead we opted to upcycle some old ikea stools that the children were playing with in the garden! et voila, a cool new bench! the other half of the...

07. April 2016

a trip to the beth chatto gravel garden was very inspirational for both myself and the garden owners of one of my current projects. their soil is predominantly stodgy clay, so we were on the hunt for suitable dry garden, clay soil loving plants! obviously the plan is to dig grit into the soil to make it free draining, but the owners wanted to look at plants that cope with no maintenance and thrive in all types of soil. the beth chatto gravel garden is just the place for this. the gravel garden...

24. March 2016

I picked up my new board today. how exciting?!

18. February 2016

today, on a very cold sunny morning, we helped to build a new bug hotel at RHS hyde hall down near higgledy hyde........and we found its very first bug resident! also today we noted the impressive magnolia buds and saw that the pinus mugo seemed to serve as a bug hotel all on its own. Spot the ladybirds!

09. February 2016

while enjoying the windy weather at RHS Hyde Hall the other day, we took a look at their vegetable plot to see what is growing and what is not at this time of year. we are planning our own vegetable plot at Barons Court School, so we took the opportunity to gain some inspiration and ideas.

08. February 2016

we are very fortunate to live so close to an RHS garden. from the days long ago when I was a trainee designer I have been visiting Hyde Hall and I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing its transition into the fabulous garden it is today. on sunday we took a stroll around hyde hall in very blustery weather (thanks to storm imogen I assume) to check out what is growing in this very mild february. we were greeted with beautiful galanthus and winter crocus flowers, sarcoccoca confusa in full glory and...