I’m not talking about the sample piece of artificial turf courtesy of namgrass, which my ten year old creatively utilised in his Lego ‘Hagrid’s Hut’ installation, nor the Toro light pen, which is annihilating our house in its laser gun guise assumed by my youngest, but as a industry novice and inspiring garden designer I wanted to share a relatively serious comment on this event and its relevancy to my new career path.
Read MoreResponding to a call for help from a designer I greatly admire, I dashed up the A1(M) to Peterborough last week. Chris Beardshaw had been invited by the DIY SOS Big Build Team ‘Children in Need Special’, to design a landscaped garden and playground surrounding a newly built community center that will primarily house the Little Miracles Charity, a parent led support group for families with children that have additional needs, disabilities and life limiting conditions.
Read More‘Really, are you sure, an arch spanning the Long Walk?’ For those who don’t know the Long Walk is a perfectly straight path/road that stretches 2.64 miles from her majesty’s castle residence in Windsor up Snow Hill terminating near the foot of the imposing ‘Copper Horse’ statue. You receive stunning vistas from either end, in fact from any point along it!
Read MoreIt’s been a long break since my last post, I've been enjoying an actual summer with sun this year and given that our choice of family holiday was decidedly risky weather-wise, we were extremely lucky!
Read MoreThere’s a little hotel ‘round our way, called Cowarth Park, you may have even heard of it! Part of its attraction, and there are plenty, are the sumptuous gardens, constantly maintained by the knowledgeable and friendly garden staff.
The main house is flanked by individually styled garden areas, that sit slightly raised above the large planted meadow separated by a Ha-ha wall and adjoined by a small timber arched bridge.
Read MoreLike most, I enjoy the barbecue season, and I don’t just mean guarding the grill, beer in hand, tong armed and comedy apron attired. I mean the whole process, food preparation, marinades, sauces, salads, cooking, alfresco dining etc. As a mild pyromaniac, I was introduced to the barbecue at a fairly early age, perhaps as a vain attempt to channel my fire obsession, but more likely as a cleverly disguised chore. In those days our cooking device was little more than a stack of un-mortared bricks and a wire grill rack, but I used to revel in the process of getting the temperature/coals just right to ensure that my mum’s Indonesian recipe skewers (more on those in a future post) were cooked to perfection, and I rarely failed.
Read MoreIt used to pain me, the way my parents and grandparents labelled us the ‘throw away’ generation.
“It’s not worth replacing, it’ll cost almost as much as buying new,” I would argue. Or “Don’t blame us, were the consumers not the manufacturers.”
But now as a parent myself, a little older and slightly more responsible (!), I now discover myself agreeing with them to a certain degree, but don’t let on.
Read MoreIf you ever wanted a clear example of the importance pricing plays in a marketing strategy to increase the desirability of a product or service, then look no further thanThe Royal Landscape, part of The Crown Estate near Windsor.
The area is broken down into three areas, namely The Savill Garden, Virginia Water and The Valley Gardens all housed within the Windsor Great Park. Very fortunately I live on the doorstep of this thousand acre site, and utilise its entirety often for various family activities.
Read MoreI have a little lawn to the north facing front of my house. Over time I've added some box hedging to line the front path, some birch trees, that I intend to keep small with regular pruning, a few pale narcissus that pop up briefly in the spring and a Rosa banksiae 'Lutea' rambling rose which I'm currently training along the wall and adjacent fence.
Unfortunately the lawn is a bit of eyesore, with neglect leaving it overrun with moss and a brown colour suggesting a small infestation of Chafer grubs, and whilst I do like a bit of the old green blades, I’m still finding the area fairly featureless and so decided to attempt a little bit of simple landscaping to create a new central bed.
Read MoreDorney Court Kitchen Garden is a delightful collective nursery, café, children’s play area and garden providing the perfect coffee and cake destination for all the family to enjoy. Obviously the main attractions for us are the three ride-on pedal tractors that our children use to explore the site, keeping them amused and allowing our uninterrupted cappuccino supping!
The beautiful and recently restored Victorian kitchen garden is accessed through the main nursery, and as you pass through the gap in the encircling wall, you are immediately greeted by a clever and contemporary suspended steel arched tunnel, supporting flowering wisteria and a pathway beneath bordered with striking flowering alliums among other perennials.
Read MoreWhile watching the opening coverage of the RHS Chelsea on the BBC yesterday, I was enchanted with the Arthritis Research UK garden that Chris Beardshaw has designed and constructed for the show this year, and engaged by his typically eloquent description of the journey it represents. I was also surprised to learn of his personal battle with the disease and could relate to his previous personal choice not to expose his diagnosis.
As Chris explained, arthritis exists in various forms and as a fellow long term sufferer, the result of a childhood infection; it was enlightening to hear someone speak so candidly about their choice to suffer in relative silence.
Read MoreI recently visited Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons in Great Milton, Oxfordshire. Oooh! I here you cry as you raise your imaginary handbags to your chin, but ‘hey’ how else do you celebrate your grandmother's 90th year milestone? If you want to eat great food, it's best done in terrific settings, I’d say. After reading and viewing images of the gardens, I desperately wanted to take a look. The place had so much to offer, so here’s just a little snippet of our outing.
The house approach is exactly as you’d expect, the traditional lavender lined path, interspersed with tulips, informal box hedging and alliums just ripening to explode, on a backdrop of mature shrubs and occasional oxford stone walling, quite an entrance.
Read MoreListen, I’m as bigger admirer as most of all things ‘non-muggle’. I delight in the creativity of the stories and the pleasure it gives my children to re-enact these adventures.
After a recent trip to the Warner Bros Harry Potter studios, I was equally impressed with the tour and marvelled at the work and detail that has gone into producing this magical world to the screen, and was particularly entertained by Warwick Davis and Nick Dudman’s beautifully comical guide to special effects.
However with all these things the tour throws you out into the gift shop, and whilst you always attempt to prepare yourself for the worst, my surprise at the merchandise prices was matched only by my realisation that Professor Snape was one of the good guys.
Read MoreI've been visiting Cliveden since I was a small child, so I’m thrilled that my three young children get as much as I did and still do from this amazing setting. But hey, what’s not to like?
Woodland, river, formal gardens, sculpture, great architecture, history, pond gardens, maze, secret paths, wildlife, play parks, picnic areas, not forgetting cappuccino and ice cream. No wonder it’s the flagship attraction for the National Trust.
As a family we are frequent visitors, and often find ourselves in the woodland to the south of the main house, where they have recently constructed ‘Clive’s Den,’ (you see what they did there, brilliant!) a simple and somewhat impromptu wood structure that my children believe they have conquered as their own.
Read MoreI’m a long term fan of Crocus, but surprisingly and probably disappointingly for them I've never made a single purchase from their website and tend to use it for inspiration purposes and then source my plants elsewhere. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I just like to see exactly what I’m buying!
Anyhow, I was in the market for a Rosa banksiae 'Lutea', (a thorn-less rambling rose, displaying abundant beautiful small yellow flowers at this time of year) and noticed that Crocus were opening their doors to the public for a day, so I took the opportunity to check out their operation with my family and make a direct purchase.
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