Beth Chatto's gravel garden, 30 years on
I revisit a moment – thirty years ago – that totally reframed my thinking, and continues to influence virtually every design decision I make.
Great Dixter Revisited
(RE-POST) It’s exactly half my life since I lived and worked with Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter.  I returned yesterday – a rich, life-giving and pretty emotional moment.  

Beth Chatto's gravel garden, 30 years on

I revisit a moment – thirty years ago – that totally reframed my thinking, and continues to influence virtually every design decision I make. ...

Great Dixter Revisited

(RE-POST) It’s exactly half my life since I lived and worked with Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter.  I returned yesterday – a rich, life-giving and pretty emotional moment.   ...

Award winning perennial plantings in a carpark... how very German.

Bettina Jaugstetter (Germany) has created an award winning garden in the carpark of an industrial park. A triumph of low maintenance and high wow-factor. Visit this garden with us on our New Naturalis ...

One of my favourite English country gardens - in New Zealand!

Barewood, in the Awatere Valley of NZ, is the realised dream of the visionary Caroline Ferraby. Generous, gracious lawns connected by magical avenues, as background to gorgeous colour themed plantings ...

Cutting edge planting. Where?

Situated on a former American Army barracks, the recently created Sheridan Park is built around a long sinuous spine of paths, which split and rejoin like a braided river.  Each of the consequent ‘ ...

Winterhome NZ, vista upon vista

Winterhome, on the stunning Kekerengu coastline, is a garden of formal, interconnecting vistas that leaves you gasping at the vision and sense of scale of its creator. The ocean views are spectacular, ...

Simply the best way to learn about garden design

I can’t think of a more enjoyable – or effective – way to learn about garden design than to do so on the road, visiting exemplary gardens with a group of like-minded people. That’s why I’ve ...

Flaxmere NZ. Try keeping me away

Somehow Flaxmere has escaped my many visits to the South Island of NZ.  I’d seen many photos, but nothing prepared me for the epic reality.  The vision, the determination, the sheer grit of creato ...

A lifetime of exemplary achievement

It’s hard to imagine that it’s even possible that a garden like Trott’s Garden, just outside of Christchurch, NZ, could be created in one lifetime, and by one man.  It’s an astonishing achiev ...

The smaller the garden, the bigger the design challenge

It would be easy to make the mistake of thinking that the bigger the garden, the bigger the design challenge.  But the exact opposite is true.  The smaller the space, the more discipline is required ...

Great Dixter - the unbearable build-up

Great Dixter is one of my favourite places in the world.  Has been for nearly 30 years.  I’ve been deliriously happy there and horribly stressed.  In that house and garden, I’ve experienced hig ...

Just give me a year

It’s completely baffling to me how English, American (and, frankly, therefore Australian) gardeners and designers have remained profoundly ignorant of the rigorous research being carried out in Germ ...

A New Contender For My Favourite Garden?

Gravetye Manor is a floral explosion of gardening at its highest difficulty level. Tom Coward, as head gardener, manages this stupendous feat of carefully timed planting in such a way as to inspire yo ...

An evening at Beth's

The Beth Chatto Symposium, organised to celebrate Beth’s 95th year, and the 40th anniversary of the publication of Beth’s first book The Dry Garden included a garden party which, as if channelling ...

One Thing - Ninfa

Is Ninfa, as is so often claimed, the most romantic garden in the world?   ...