My Garden

The festive season got off to a flying start this year at Harlow Carr with Santa whizzing in from Lapland with a couple of his trainee reindeer and assorted helpers last weekend. An unprecedented number of visitors watched them arrive with their sleigh on a perfect sunny and frosty winter day and joined... Read more..

As I write, the sun is shining at Wisley. What a pleasant change. The Garden is looking very pretty, with some outstanding witch hazels ( Hamamelis ) shining brightly in the Wild Garden and on Battleston Hill. Their fragrance carries some fair distance, and the sweet scent mingles with that of the numerous... Read more..

We were all very sad to hear of the death of Geoffrey Smith last Friday. Geoffrey came to Harlow Carr as a young man of 26, full of enthusiasm, ideas and determination - and no little skill too. With a small team and miniscule resources he set about carving out a garden from an empty field in a cold... Read more..

Our Grow Your Own weekend proved exceptionally popular on the weekend of 7-8th March. As part of the event we celebrated the 200th birthday of the famous cooking apple ‘Bramley’s Seedling’ AGM. Jim Arbury and his team in the Fruit and Trials Department planted the tree at the edge of the Fruit Field... Read more..

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..