“Every day, as I come home and see my garden, I think I must tell Veronica how marvellous it looks. At last, I am doing just that… The garden has looked glorious all through the summer and even now it still looks wonderful – A bit more wild and woolly than it might be under someone else’s care, but I like it just as it is… Many thanks for our garden, one of the best things we ever did.”
Lady (Aurelia) Young, Hampshire

“Just wanted to thank you for all your help with our garden.  It has been an absolute pleasure having your very professional and extremely efficient input into our garden.” May 2018, a client in Hampshire.   

 I am a garden designer working across England and abroad.   I have been creating gardens for clients in the private sector, usually country gardens, for nearly three decades.

 

My ethos is that I want my clients to have the garden that THEY want, and one which suits their needs as the years pass – perhaps a football pitch today may become an orchard or wild flower meadow in the future; I always try and create a flexible and useable garden that will bring great pleasure but which will also be maintainable within the gardening budget and hours allotted. I will always look to the architecture of the house and the surrounding countryside and will blend the garden into both of these – such an important part of a successful design. The planting will be as you desire – crisp topiary, grasses and prairie flowers, or traditional English borders of blousy roses with delphiniums and scented lilies – the ‘look’ is up to you.   My passion for plants and my love of creating planting schemes is the very best part of the whole job!

 

 

However, my technical knowledge of the hard-works is also an important ingredient when working with builders and contractors in the early stages. A recent email from a client stated “It’s so comforting to know you are such an expert not only with garden design… but also the intricacies of the inner and outer workings of cesspits.” Tongue-in-cheek this may be, but a good knowledge of how the walls, paving, ponds, fountains, irrigation system, lighting, levels and terracing, banks and hahas, and so on will look and how they will be constructed is very important.

 

I have experience of working with the Local Authorities including the provision of landscape plans as part of a planning consent for new build properties – these also usually include a requirement for a full schedule of planting including species and size of plants to be installed, along with a ten year maintenance schedule for all the plants and the garden – lawns, hedges, trees and etc.

I have worked with many contractors and experts over the years, from the nurseries that supply the plants, to those who build the gardens. They are reliable and top class.

 

I have spent much of my gardening life on thin, poor soil over chalk, which was light, easy to work and just needed a bit of TLC and annual feeding and enriching. However, I now live on damp, acid, clay soil with streams and springs (and lots of horrific weeds). But joy of joys, I can grow so many of my Northumbrian childhood favourites such as Candelabra primulas and Himalayan poppies. Variety is the horticultural spice of life!

 

My garden heroes are Jeffrey Jellicoe, Harold Peto, Arabella Lennox-Boyd, the Bannermans, Gertrude Jekyll and, most of all, Christopher Lloyd.   I admire the fabulous work of architects Adam, Vanburgh and Palladio but I also love Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Lutyens, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Italian 20th century Carlo Scarpa.

 

In 2003, I was delighted to win a Chelsea Flower Show silver medal for a wild woodland for Truffle UK.  I have had articles published by the Sunday Express and the English Garden magazine, and until recently, I wrote the monthly articles for Hampshire Society magazine, and supplied the photographs. I am proud to say that I wrote over 100 articles for this publication! A small book, The Top 100 Gardens of Britain was published in 2003, which I was commissioned to write – I visited hundreds of gardens across the land, which was not a chore!

Please feel free to contact me about projects large or small – I am very happy to talk to you about your requirements.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

Below – My own little front garden, before and after in Marlborough.  Latter taken July 2020.    No more slippery paving, no more mowing, and very productive.  This garden contains …Herbs, Rhubarb, Red currants, Black currants, Chillies – about 8 varieties, Tomatoes – 2 varieties, Runner beans, Broad beans, French beans, Swiss chard, Lettuces – several sorts, Maincrop potatoes (Ratte), First Early potatoes (Can’t remember which), Courgettes – lots and lots.  And plenty of scent from the Phlox and other  flowers.

 

Below are photos of the garden in 2022 – In late spring and then in late July.