I am new to this so I hope you will be patient while I get into my digital stride. I am a garden designer based in Wiltshire on the Somerset and Dorset borders, and I work from a little garrett in the estate office of the glorious Palladian house and gardens of Stourhead. So when designer's block strikes, a stroll around the lake never fails to inspire me.
Just as the days lengthen and perhaps especially this year after all the snow and ice, you get that longing for Spring. From my tiny window in the eaves I can glimpse the tops of some beech trees and Rhododendrons whcih are budding with the promise of things to come. I'm not alone, either, because just this week I have had three calls from new potential clients, each keen to rethink and revitalise their gardens. The initial meetings are always so important: not just for the site visit and soil test, but for the opportunity to really understand what someone wants from their garden and how these wishes can be married to the landscape and its relation to the house. My journey to garden design came from graphic design so I have a particularly visual approach to the job. I've been working this week with the team putting together my new website and it's meant collecting and editing my vast collection of photographs and designs. The exercise has really brought home to me how much I value texture in the overall planting and landscaping decisions of my schemes. Varying and marrying textures so enriches the overall effect and can be as evocative as colour in determining the mood of a garden.
Small clumps of snowdrops are to be seen bravely nodding among the wintry grass.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
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