I'm passionate about foxgloves, in the right location they naturalise readily, they are easy to cultivate, the resulting varieties are rich in colour, stature and texture – I like the sophisticated rusty brown shades. These elegant plants have history, beauty, variety, a suspicion of danger and, being very attractive to bumblebees, serve a practical environmental purpose – what is not... (read more...)
A good and important question, and whilst I’m probably on a hiding to nothing in trying to define a house style – since there are so many variables and one is never standing still – it is an interesting exercise none-the-less. Here goes! (read more...)
I fell in love with cow parsley as a boy. I knew it as a common weed and, running amok in our garden woodland, it was considered anything but precious. My brother and I would cut linking pathways through it – an early exploration into garden design? We used hazel sticks as machetes to feel like Amazonian explorers, or bare-chested,... (read more...)
My first visit to RHS Chelsea Flower Show was as a boy being dragged, kicking and screaming, by my mum. I thought it would be full of the “paisley-skirted ladies who lunch” brigade. Turns out I enjoyed it in all its diversity, the wacky and bizarre end of things, of course! But I was also struck by the elegant, contemporary... (read more...)
Elderflower champagne is the original and guaranteed garden party show-stopper and the secret to a good elderflower champagne is all in the timing. (read more...)
Read how our photographer Laura Burt approached this project & her analysis of her three favourite shots. (read more...)
If you want a home in the UK’s most unaffordable city, you’ll have to be creative. Cherry Maslen tells how this family did it. (read more...)
Our practice has been involved in specifying a number of ‘green roofs’ over recent years, usually sedum due to roof load-bearing constraints. However, our most recent and enjoyable roof project has been when we designed our eco-house in Oxford. Planning restrictions meant that the entire kitchen would have a flat roof with a large skylight as would the garden office,... (read more...)
The discussion of formal vs informal, of humanised landscape vs nature untrammelled can be a hotly debated topic in the world of garden design. A wide variety of garden styles and tastes is the spice of life, but to suggest any designer can ‘recreate nature’ is, in our opinion, a non-starter. (read more...)
There are probably few things more exciting (in the world of garden design) than the arrival to site of mature trees ready for planting. They add a structure, maturity and instant three-dimensionality to a scheme that otherwise may take 5 -15 years to reach its design intent. (read more...)
