Free Advice from a Garden Designer

We all grow up with memories of water in some form, whether it’s catching tadpoles by a stream, searching rock pools by the sea or splashing in puddles on the way home from school.

Creating a new garden can be a very daunting experience, especially if all you have is a lawn and bare fences.

Garden design has seen many trends come and go over the years but one material has literally stood the test of time.

Intelligent landscape design is a combination of form and function.

Spring is the easiest time of year to write about and words like ‘awakening’ and ‘uplifting’ are hard to deny when describing the landscape around us.

Kent is well known as the ‘Garden of England’ and not without good reason.

Water is essential to all living things and even though a typical English summer will herald rain, one thing is for sure, if we have a summer like last year then plants in the garden will need careful watering to ensure they survive the heat.

There is a saying that power is nothing without control and mankind has always been attempting to control nature to produce food or to create a statement of power.

It’s wake up time in gardens all over Kent, now the daffodils and crocuses have finished exploding up through the soil to take our breath away with riots of bright colour.

After the dark days of the winter, there are few things more uplifting than the sight of the first emerging buds beginning to swell as plants wake from their cold slumber.

The idea that the garden is very much an extension of the house has lead to the concept that the garden can be in effect, ‘an outdoor room’.

Fashions come and go. Styles and fashions within garden design are no exception and every year there are new trends that stand out as ‘must haves’, whether it’s the latest in lighting technology or materials such as stainless steel and contemporary decking.

New ideas emerge from the world of landscape design on a regular basis and none more so than for the ubiquitous patio.

The demand for new houses has increased in the South East recently and with so much building work going on, our surrounding landscape is undergoing some major changes.

Here in the South East stories of land shortage are becoming ever more common as house builders attempt to meet the demand for new homes.

One of the primary purposes of any garden is to create a natural space in which plants and wildlife can thrive.

At this time of year, the Kent countryside will be alive to the sound of mowers, shears and rakes, all taming the countless square miles of lawns that make up the majority of the garden landscape.

February is a crucial month in the gardening calendar and with the first of the spring bulbs starting to show, it’s not hard to see why.

The often-used media phrase for the modern garden is the ‘outdoor room’.

Garden designers draw their inspiration from a number of sources, sometimes it’s the surrounding landscape, sometimes the individual character of the person who owns the garden.

A warmer than average spring left many gardeners feeling as if summer had already started, but a few sharp frosts caught out many magnolias and other spring flowering shrubs.

You might be mistaken for thinking that the reason Kent gardeners are all reaching for their sunglasses is because of the recent long spell of wonderful sunshine.

Gardening is full of trends and perhaps the world of garden design even more so.

Most discerning homeowners will wisely invest in their properties, be it a new kitchen, bathroom or conservatory.

There are many things to consider when choosing plants for a new garden, from the type of soil and aspect in which they will be planted, to the feel of the scheme once it matures.

The New Year is a perfect time for making a ‘must do’ list of home improvements.

What an amazing summer! Long sunny days and high temperatures have given parts of Kent an almost Mediterranean feel.

Xeriscaping isn’t a word you’d have heard in the last six months after an incredibly wet winter. 

Refreshing summer showers may keep plants looking lush and healthy but all that growth produces copious amounts of one thing in particular. Waste.

Who says plants can’t be like people?

From the royal garden at Highgrove to smaller gardens of the South East, there’s one element that all gardens have, no matter what their size and stature.

Autumn is a bountiful time of the year, with fruits having ripened at the end of a long summer.

One of the most challenging and enjoyable aspects for a designer creating a new garden for a client is the ability to be innovative whilst capturing the client’s character and personality.