My Garden

I was born and grew up in Siena where my family still live. I came to England 15 years ago to study garden design and I have been designing gardens for the last 12 years. Last year I was offered the opportunity by Champagne Laurent-Perrier to design their garden for the Chelsea Flower Show in 2009... Read more..

I think we are pretty much in control of everything and I am travelling to Verona in Italy next week to check on the production of the stone. I’m using an unfilled Travertine which is a calcareous stone, and for those who are not familiar with this type of stone, it’s a stone with a beautiful character... Read more..

This week I paid a visit to Crocus, with Catherine MacDonald - my project manager for the Chelsea garden, to inpsect the Carpinus Boxhead trees and hedging plants, and to take a look at the growth of the perennials plants I’ve selected. The trees were set out in a lines reminiscent of their arrangement... Read more..

Next week I will be travelling back to Verona. The Travertine blocks, for the water features, have been cut and I will be choosing their best face into which the bronze outlets will be cut. Also the brown sandstone pieces for the interior of the water features are currently in production so I will get... Read more..

I visited Verona with Andrew Ewing & Catherine on Friday. We arrived at the stone supplier's yard and there was two large solid travertine blocks - waiting for us, what a sight. The natural pits and holes in the surface were amazing and the blocks were like art features themselves. We chose the... Read more..

Last week we had a meeting at Crocus with Mark Fane and with the rest of the Crocus construction team including Graham Hoyle who will be building the Laurent-Perrier Garden. Its getting to close to Chelsea now and the meeting went over a lot of the more intricate details such as the travertine clad feature... Read more..

Well we have finally started work on the garden. The boundary hedge is in, the Carpinus Boxhead trees were delivered over the weekend and are being positioned today. The stone for the water features has arrived and work on the feature wall has started. Suddenly everything is happening! It's amazing... Read more..

Tuesday was a very important day this week, as we had a crane in the afteroon to put in the two tonne Travetine blocks for the water features. They also craned in the five brown sandstone blocks. It took a bit of manoevering to get them into position! Also, the stone specialists were on site assisting... Read more..

The Andrew Ewing water features have now all been installed and he's just tweaking the water flow and the finish for the stone blocks. The sculpture by Nigel Hall is in place and is fantastic! The corten steel finish works so well with the colour of the Travertine, in the sunlight it casts a precise... Read more..

What a beautiful day it is today. Glorious sun and blue sky, and Wisley looks fantastic. I think the sunflowers on the Trials Field would agree, maybe thinking they're in Tuscany... if sunflowers could think! We've flowers all over, and the Top Terrace bedding is really tall now, with the cosmos... Read more..