Focusing on the green shoots....

Autumn is here and for our gardens that means bulb planting.  Each year I order just a few more than I did last year, but this year I seemed to outdo myself and when I unpacked the box containing my order I discovered a whopping 750 bulbs! And they were all Alliums!  (I am experimenting with lots of different varieties this year, so I will report back in the Spring on my favourites.)

As you can imagine, 750 bulbs took several hours of backbreaking work to plant them all – but as I worked it gave me time to dwell on the miracle of planting life, sowing a seed, starting a plant on its journey towards green shoots.

2020 has been an extraordinarily challenging year for everyone. Covid has changed all our lives – obviously those hit hardest are those who have been directly affected by losing someone, but the virus has forced changes for us all.  Businesses and livelihoods have been hit hard, we have had to withdraw from our family and friends, and many children went months without being in school.  So, amongst all the hardship and sorrow and ongoing challenges I felt massively uplifted to be performing the simple act of digging a hole in some soil, popping a bulb in and covering it up.  So so simple.  And yet from that simple act, life will emerge – green shoots and joyous baubles of purple.  Can you imagine 750 of them en masse?!  I simply can’t wait for Spring.  So it gave me hope and it made me look forward to new life.  Get out there and plant some bulbs – it’s good for the soul and the rewards will be worth it in the Spring!

Following the build process on our Clifton garden

The last sweep up is done. The skip has gone. The sprinkler is going on the immaculate new lawn. The sun is out (just about) and for one family in Clifton, it’s time for them to enjoy the Summer in their smart new garden.

I began work on the design for this garden in the winter last year and it has been a thoroughly rewarding process working with the client and the talented team of contractors to deliver a new garden which will hopefully bring many years of enjoyment to this family. The brief was to do a complete re-design on the existing garden and create a space that would draw the family out into the garden to enjoy it together. My client is a keen plantswoman with extensive plant knowledge of her own, but the form and shape of the garden needed addressing. My client likes strong lines and formal shapes - my job was to create a more cohesive, structured layout to the garden and combine this with planting that delivered clean lines and a sense of formality whilst staying true to the traditional Clifton architecture of the house. I needed a design that would sympathetically blend the traditional and the modern. The photos below show the journey of the build from start to finish.

Original garden when I first visited in Winter last year

Everything stripped back, and work begins laying the clay paver brick path which would form the backbone of this design. @chelmervalley

Working on the terrace. The path takes shape. Planting of the smart new pleached hornbeams which form a screen at the bottom of the garden.

Introducing form; in the shape of topiary and sculpture (https://www.aplaceinthegarden.co.uk/) and laying the membrane that will sit beneath the gravel.

The turf goes down. Into the finishing stages….

The finished garden. Time to pour a glass of wine and enjoy!

Christmas Creations

Our Christmas Wreath workshops were a really festive way to finish off the year. Thanks to everyone who came and here are some of the stunning wreaths created. Now on to 2019! Happy New Year to everyone. I am currently working on 4 different design projects so lots of exciting work to concentrate on over the next few months - I will be sharing images and pics of them all shortly!

EVENT: Christmas Wreath Workshop

Haddon Hall, Derbyshire

Last weekend we visited Haddon Hall in Derbyshire. It is a stunningly beautiful medieval hall set on a slope above the River Wye near Bakewell in Derbyshire.  Set amid stunning rolling countryside and swathed in roses, it is a romantic, gentle gem of a house.  But for me, the true treasures are its gardens.  Set into terraces, the old Elizabethan gardens have been sensitively brought up to date, (without losing their sense of formal, yet rambling, ancient structure) by well-known garden designer Arne Maynard.

Arne has an innate understanding of how to create the ‘bones’ of a garden, and I love the structural elements he has used at Haddon.  In particular the ‘copper beech cubes’ which he has used on the fountain terrace garden strike a perfect balance between formal structure whilst adding a contemporary edge.

Topiary (be it box, yew or native deciduous trees such as hornbeam and beech) is fantastic for creating scale and structure, and I always try to incorporate some element of topiary into my designs.  Arne’s’ clever use of topiary, softened by roses and wild flowers create a perfect trio of harmony at Haddon Hall.

Isles of Scilly

Recently, I was lucky enough to go and stay on the Isles of Scilly – a beautiful archipelago of islands off the coast of Cornwall.  For a plant lover it is a fascinating place to visit because, despite being part of the UK and its relative proximity to the mainland, the islands have a sub-tropical climate and play host to a range of plants that would have no chance of surviving on the mainland.  Never was the phrase ‘Right Plant, Right Place’ more apt.

The famous Tresco Abbey Gardens, established in the 19th century by the pioneering Augustus Smith, has over 2000 specimens of plants from around the world, in particular South Africa, South America, the Mediterranean and Australasia.  But the exotic plants are in no way restricted to the gardens themselves.  All over the island of Tresco, there is a glorious array of palm trees, candle-like Echiums, statuesque Agaves and many many succulents (Echeveria, Aeonium to name only two) which creep up walls, over stones, and into crevices – growing naturally in and amongst the gorgeous Agapanthus. But the stunner that really caught my eye this summer was a plant I had never ever seen before.

Popping up all over the island were these incredible statue-like spindly forms.  Rather like a Yucca they had a rosette of blades at their base, but then from the centre there rose up about 4-5 metres this single mast with multiple arms coming off it, and little pretty cream flowers dangling off every arm – just like baubles on a Christmas tree.  Stunningly pretty and an incredible structural form.  Intrigued, I tracked down one of the highly knowledgeable garden staff who work on the island and discovered this beauty’s name.  It was a Mexican plant called a Furcraea longaeva– a succulent from the Asparagaceae family. The Furcraea send up this stunning mast-like feature and flower only one in their lifetime and it seems that they have to go through a period of stress to induce them to do this.  The cold snap we had this winter even managed to reach Scilly’s shores and the gardener I spoke to was convinced that this had put the plants under enough stress to make them perform this incredible display in the summer – she said she has only seen it happen every 6-7 years.   I felt very lucky to have been there to witness them put on this show.  Let’s hope I may see it again in another 6-7 years!!  Keep an eye out for them if you ever go to the Scillies – they are a rare beauty indeed.

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