Monday was press day at The Hampton Court Palace Flower Show and it allowed the first peek at what the largest Flower Show has to offer.

It is set in the huge grounds of Hampton Court Palace and has something for everyone - with accompanied children getting in free. So what of this years Show.?

Shows like this are often judged on the quality of the Show Gardens and there was a really mixed bag this year with some offering really over the top selections of colours while others selected just one colour. Jack Dunckley's Garden was certainly the former with what seemd to be every colour imaginable included in the 100 trolleys of plants bought in for the show

The other extreme was Hambrooks 'The Living Room' which was quite stark by comparison selecting white as the theme in the same way you might choose a limited palette for interior decoration.

Probably the most striking was the Matter of Urgency Garden with its surreal pink plastic tap gushing water constantly - I suspect this image will last longest in peoples memory of the show!

Best in Show went to Reflections of Thailand by James Clarke which was expertly executed.

Other gardens of note were the Combat Stress Garden

The Girlguiding Centenary Garden

An Uprising of Kindness Garden

The Copella Bee Garden

The LEGOLAND Pirates Landing Garden

But the show is more than just the Show Gardens - there was a Shakespearean theme running through much of the show with gardens depicting some of the Shakespeare Comedies

A scarecrow competition featuring characters from the comedies.

With it being the Girlguiding Centenary there were also a large number of cameo pieces craeted by the girlguides who were there in force on Monday enjoying the show. What a great way to enthuse youngsters in gardening!

Talking of youngsters - the youngest designer, just 15 years old, at the Show (ever) was James Callicot with an Artists Garden - James was too young to be allowed on site during the build so had to direct by viewing pictures taken by his landscaping team - now there is dedication!

James was surprised to learn that James Alexander Sinclair knew who he was! (Shocking shirt btw JAS!!)

This show really is huge and I have just touched the surface here. I'll put up another blog as soon as I can to highlight some of the other aspects of the show.

It was great to see the young designers of tomorrow making their mark and the younger members of the public coming to enjoy the show. A great day out with masses to see and do.

I haven't covered yet the Small Gardens, Sustainable Gardens, Conceptual Gardens, Plant Heritage Marquee, Floral Marquee, Home Grown and so on and so on.... did I mention it was a big show! Oh and of course there are stands selling plants and all manner of garden bits and pieces that you can buy and take with you - I succumbed to a rather fine Gunnera mannicata!

If you have never been to an RHS Show before the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is a great place to start but make sure you allow a very full day - or two!

When you meet an iconic person from your chosen field it is difficult to know what to expect. When that designer has won a prestigious RHS Gold Medal at Chelsea flower show for the stunning Champagne Laurent-Perrier Garden you have a real sense of anticipation.

Joy then when Luciano smiles in a totally relaxed greeting. Here is a man who has met his demons and come to terms with them in a measured and philosophical way. Chelsea clearly marked a turning point and saw the culmination of nearly 15 years experience in designing beautiful, bold gardens that I suspect will be held up as examples of garden design for many many years. His gardens are not for the faint hearted and perhaps don't meet everyones idea of what a garden should be.

Here is a man so dedicated to his art that nothing stands in his way in seeking the ultimate in garden design.

Born in Sienna, Ital he studied garden design at Inchbald and was heavily influenced by the scene in London in the early 1990's. Every single element of his designs has importance and are more than just lines on the drawing paper. His two fascinations are light and food, with his gardens becoming an extension of the kitchen, which he explains, are frequently the main living areas in contemporary London houses. They display a simplicity in form, light and shade, however this simplicity masks a truly in depth knowleedge of the materials and plants that he is working with.

He is keen to point out that his designs are a collaboration between all the people that he works with, from architects and sculptors to specialist furniture makers, plant nurseries and many others. He spends time researching the elements that will help make his designs work on many levels, not only during the day but also at night where discreet lighting gives his gardens a whole new dimension.

This business of collaboration and working together is important and we encourage members of The Garden Network to do just exactly that, and to maintain their integrity in solving the garden design problems that face them. This can be quite a challenge, but as Luciano explained - many of his gardens take up to 4 years to create and he now has a time awareness that means he can choose who he works with and for. I guess when you reach these heights that becomes important but it is very clear from the outset that he very much intended to be the very best he could be.

It was great to meet Luciano and learn from him. I can certainly see ways in which he can influence the work that I undertake for my clients so really glad I made the effort to attend his garden design masterclass.

Luciano Giubbilei website - take a look at more of his stunning work. 

ps: This was one of a series of Garden Design Masterclasses held at the Oxford College of Garden Design

The Garden Network is a wonderful place for meeting people that share your passion for gardening. There is a wide mix of people from around the country with widely different skills and interests but all with a common passion. Meeting people is great and it becomes hugely rewarding both for the individuals and for me as owner of TGN. Seeing these relationships develop makes me realise just how important a role this network plays in bringing people together for mutual benefit.

Recently I have been notified of a number of working associations that have grown as a direct result of membership of TGN.
 
These range from mentoring activities between fellow garden designers, where designers with many years experience are helping those who are relatively new to garden design, to project collaboration, where landscapers are pooling their resources to help meet tight deadlines and keep clients happy. There have also been examples of skill sharing between designers and landscapers, in order to achieve better results on larger scale projects. And finally but by no means least, opportunities derived directly as a result of our sponsorship by NFU Mutual.

Stories like these are becoming commonplace amongst active members of The Garden Network. I include myself in this as I am currently collaborating with a company on a large project where specialist skills are required beyond my personal level of experience. I have also been able to refer landscapers to help both clients and other garden designers.

Such associations and collaborations seem to work well for all involved not least the end client. It is gratifying to hear that we can work successfully together, all make some money, and satisfy customer needs.

Friendships developed on TGN also benefit homeowners and garden beginners with help being offered for solving garden questions and problems. The Garden Network provides a friendly environment where we can share our interest and continue learning about our outdoor world.

There are also opportunities to meet up with fellow enthusiasts at shows and for garden visits.

So make the most of this fabulous resource – see who you can help and in return don’t be shy about asking for help – there is a growing membership all willing to come to your assistance.

Happy networking

Tim

These days there seem to be an ever increasing number of gardening shows. Each offering their own distinct and unique character. RHS Chelsea Flower Show is of course the pinnacle of such events and attracts a huge amount of media coverage. Television cameras almost rule the show though, with every leaf, petal and stone captured during the extensive coverage of this blue riband event.

For those that cannot wait to get their garden inspiration there is the altogether more relaxed, rural affair that is Malvern. Set in the foothills of the Malvern Hills - where incidentally my sister and mother in law both attend school (not at the same time I hasten to add!!). A school that I think has now amalgamated with others but was affectionately known as the 'dump on the hump' - I digress..

As a garden designer and someone who is passionate about seeing continued professional development, Malvern holds a golden key. In 2007, garden designer Chris Beardshaw founded his mentoring scholarship. This offers designers the opportunity of working with Chris for 12 months, which is amazing! This year the scholarship has attracted 8 garden entries under the title 'Circus'.

It is these gardens, which sit alongside 16 Show Gardens and numerous gardening, art, craft and food stalls, that will be the focus of my visit this year. I shall also be joining VP and the patient gardener for their Meet @ Malvern blogfest!

I am also hoping to meet up with some of the keen gardeners on the Garden Network so do let me know if you are going I'd love to say hello!

I'm a great believer in grabbing opportunity when it comes knocking. So when I discovered that the great John Brookes was delivering a garden design masterclass I re-arranged my diary to make sure I could attend.

Photo courtesy of Duncan Heather OCGD Principal

John is a hugely influential garden designer who was designing gardens before it became fashionable to do so and in so doing developed methods of designing that are widely used today by a great many garden designers. I am a big fan of his grid system and it forms the basis of many of my garden designs.

John was speaking to the Oxford College of Garden Design at St. Hugh's College Oxford on Thursday 11th March, 2010 and I travelled there to hear him speak. I was immediately taken by his genuine warmth and passion for garden design. John has been designing gardens for many years and he has clearly lost none of his enthusiasm.

What was also fascinating was that he treated the assembled audience as fellow designers, talking with us as opposed to 'lecturing' at us, which made it all the more real.

It was fascinating to discover his sources of inspiration - perhaps unsurprisingly coming from theatre, artists and sculptors of our day, in the way that other creative people draw their inspiration. It is this connection with and understanding of people that helps make his gardens believable. Apart from the money, it is those people that keeps him interested in continuing to design gardens.

His key tips, which are valid for anyone wishing to pursue garden design as a career, were to write down your justification, understand why your design ideas work or not! Build your contacts, you never know who might be helpful to you in the future. Photograph like mad, capture as many images of gardens as possible and let people know that you are around.

I certainly advocate his advice and as I develop as a garden designer ceratinly heed his words. As owner of the Garden Network building contacts is clearly an important part of my agenda and keeping a blog is a great way of writing regular articles about topics that interest you. What better opportunity then to combine these by meeting someone like John Brookes, taking some photographs and then sharing your experience!

John Brookes has written many books on garden design and owns Denmans Garden in Fontwell, West Sussex.

A couple of years ago Danny Boyles portrayal of the slums in Mumbai in Slumdog Millionaire bought the plight of families living in abject squalor to the eyes of the world. It was a moving film and anyone who has seen it will undoubtedly have been touched by some of the sequences. For those of us living in the Western world treating people like this seemed a long way from home.

But what if situations, not too far removed from this, existed on our doorstep. How would we react then?

Food Inc. may not be the next Hollywood blockbuster, but it has already been hailed as one of the top 10 most important documentaries ever made and it has received an Academy Nomination. That is quite an accolade! It is an expose on the American food system, highlighting the fast food attitude that first hit America with chains like McDonald's but which now sees such a phenomenon worldwide.

In order to meet global food demand, large companies are dominating the way farmers are having to produce food, using more fertiliser and pesticides in order to increase production. The problem with all of this is that it is leading to more and more unhealthy food, new strains of deadly bacteria are forming - with lethal consequences. The conditions that animals are being kept, reared and slaughtered are truly disgusting - a kind of American Mumbai for animals (and the human 'farm' workers).

The problem is not isolated to meat production, wheat, corn, fruit and vegetables come under similar scrutiny. Vast swathes of America are becoming dust bowls incapable of supporting any form of living organism without a constant application of expensive fertilisers and crop control. The distance food travels to reach our plate is also staggering as supermarkets do away with seasons and make all foods available all year-round meaning food travels many miles to reach your table. The cost is huge and is of global significance particularly as much of this food movement relies heavily on oil prices and oil availability.

Ah but we are in the UK I hear you say, not Mumbai or America, food production in this country isn't like that! Sorry but we are now part of a global food economy. There are fast food outlets on every street corner and they control the way we eat and how the food is produced!

Now this isn't aimed at scaremongering it is simply drawing attention to something that the food production companies and governments would rather you didn't know about.

As an individual you may think you have no power to make any sort of change - but pressure of a similar nature has completely changed the face of the tobacco industry after attention was brought to the public attention about their practices. You and your families have the right to vote three times a day on what you choose to eat. That's pretty significant and something that food companies will take notice of!

There is plenty else you can do to, firstly go and see the film yourself - take your family but be warned it is PG rated for a reason. Secondly follow some or all of the tips provided by the Soil Association.

One of those tips is to plant a garden with your own fruit and veg (even a small one). If you are new to gardening and need help there is plenty available. You can join the Garden Network for ongoing help, support and advice, join Garden Organic's One Pot Pledge campaign and join the Soil Association and get their book Stuffed which has plenty of ideas for change.

You can make a difference particularly when you see the damage that food production is doing to the world. As a garden designer and gardener I am keen to promote this. I will openly admit that as a family of 6 with both husband and wife working we certainly have many changes to make and that isn't going to be easy!

I recently ran a garden question and answers session in the local pub - I was encouraged that many of the questions related to growing your own and at least a couple of people were sufficiently enthused to give growing their own a go.

So please, take the time to at least find out about the issues, and perhaps do something positive that will save the human and animal tragedy that could very easily be closer to home than we might imagine.

My first visit to this event this year and was surrounded by well known journalists and media people all keen to see what was new in the world of gardening.

I went with my Garden Network hat on - not really knowing what to expect!  Here is my first take on the event - there were 63 stands in total so I won't be able to cover off everyone but these are some of the innovations that caught my eye.

The recurrent theme on many of the stands was, encouragingly, growing your own and organic gardening.

First up came the Vitogrow from Greenhouse Sensation - this was one of a number of products that was encouraging us to all grow your own food and combined a good-looking container which self watered the plants! A simple idea that means your crop won't dry out - so if, like me you don't remember to water your containers as regularly as you might, then this might just be what you are looking for!  The pack comes with suitable nutrients and instructions. They also offer advice and a guarantee of success. They also had on show a solar-powered device for growing plants without soil - known as hydroponic - the power simply recirculates a nutrient rich solution over the roots.

Another ingenious product came in the form of a Polanter - best described as a holey drain pipe with a leaky pipe through the middle!

Again aimed at minimising water loss during the watering process and encouraging us to grow plants including fruit and veg. It attaches to a wall and performs a similar function to a hanging basket. Watering is simple, straightforward and uses minimal water. Simply attach a hose to the water inlet at the base and wait until a few drips appear.

There were some other great products from Access Garden Products

and Forest Garden again on the Grow your own theme,

These include small greenhouses and cold frames suitable for even small gardens.

These all tie in very nicely with Garden Organic's new campaign called One Pot Pledge - aimed at getting enthusiastic gardeners to encourage a friend to try growing an edible plant for the first time and acting as a Gardening Guru to help them with their new experience. I have signed up to this and would be delighted to help anyone who is venturing out for the first time. I'm starting off with a Question and answer session at The Neston Country Inn on 11th March 2010 - I'd love you to come and join in for some fun! Contact me if you would like more details.

Following on from my previous blog on the Garden Press event - it was good to see a number of nurseries and plant suppliers present, many of whom were showing new plants and seeds. This was great from an attendees perspective as I have come home laden with goodies to try out! Again sorry if you were there but don't get a mention!

First up was Coblands Nursery - I had the pleasure of visiting the Nursery in Kent last summer so it was great to catch up with Nigel Gibson again. They offer both commercial and retail outlets for their plants but were displaying a range from their Best4plants range which is an online garden centre, I guess in some way rivalling Crocus.

Presnting their range of 'larger than usual' bulbs were Avon bulbs, I think what appeals here is that the bulbs are UK grown, not, as so many are, from Holland or Europe. If you are looking for great spring and summer flowering bulbs this site is well worth a visit. They have won numerous RHS Gold Medals for their show exhibits over the years. As a little thank you visitors were presented with a pack of Gladiolous callianthus

I am really looking forward to trying these, having first seen them a few years ago when they were known as Acidanthera murielae! They are supposed to be really nice scent although a touch tender

Celebrating 50 years were the Beth Chatto gardens and it was great to see some of the team buzzing with enthusiasm and interested as ever, I have the gardens in Essex high on my list of gardens to visit.

There were a couple of interesting seed merchants there. Worthy of note were  Harrod Horticultural with their range of Stephanie's (Harrod) Kitchen Garden Organic Seeds and Thompson and Morgan for their wide range of seeds and plant plugs. Perhaps the most interesting thing particularly if you are new to growing your own is a range from Unwins called Gro-sure which come with a guarantee of successful results. There were of course many others!

 Many of the stands had interesting organic or eco-friendly products on display including Vitax with some organic slug pellets fetchingly called Slug Death XL - no guesses as to what that does then! 

The award for the Best Overall Stand at the event though went to a company called Carbon Gold. This is an innovative company formed by Craig Sams - who also started Green & Blacks Chocolate. A quote from their website

"Biochar offers a fresh solution to the challenge of climate change. Carbon Gold is developing a portfolio of projects that uses the latest technology to turn surplus biomass into biochar - a form of fine-grained charcoal that is high in carbon and largely resistant to decomposition.

Biochar offers a unique tool to combat global warming because it can capture the carbon dioxide that has been absorbed by growing plants and tie it up in the soil for hundreds of years, so preventing it re-entering the carbon cycle.

Biochar also increases soil productivity, retains moisture and reduces nutrient leaching, thus reducing the need for irrigation and artificial or organic fertilisers. Unlike charcoal, biochar can be sourced from various types of biomass, typically from surplus agricultural materials, such as crop residues, tree prunings and agro-processing by-products."

This certainly seemed an amazing product and it will be interesting to follow its progress in the market, we shall see just what impact it can have.

There were of course tools and machinery on display and all sorts of novelties, like Backdoorshoes - which take on from where Crocs left off!

One thing I found which was particularly interesting as a garden designer was a publication on the Husqvarna stand which had analysed the many 'garden blogs' from around the world and had identified the most prevalent topics of discussion, surmising that these were likely to be the styles and trends most reflected in the corners of the globe - it makes fascinating reading and perhaps I'll find a way to share some of its contents here.

Still on the design theme Vectorworks were showing their new Vectorworks 2010 software. I use an earlier version and recently reviewed Tamsin Slatter's book on the subject. They are certainly forging ahead with developments and it is now justifiably regarded as the number one CAD software for garden designers. Like so many software packages it is a vast programme, but the backup and support available makes learning a pleasurable experience.

An interesting show and one that I could easily have spent another day at and still not spoken to everyone! Here's to next year!

Autumn brings with it a sense of occassion at Westonbirt Arboretum. And now is the time to make the most of it. The colours are just starting to really break from their summer hues to a riot of colour that is totally spectacular.

I never seem to allow myself enough time to get round the huge site. More of a whole day out than a few hours walk!

Probably most famous for its collection of Acers which put on a stunning display at this time of year there are plenty of other trees and shrubs - and most are labelled to let you know what they are - so worth taking a  notebook with the camera!

Euonymus alatus (winged spindle)

If you are in the Tetbury area (just off junction 18 of the M4 it is well worth a visit and the next week or so should see the colours at their vibrant best.

I have just returned from the SGD Masterclass in Sustainable Garden Design and am both fascinated and excited by what I heard and learnt today. Some very interesting concepts and ideas - so can we really make a difference?

I think we can and as garden designers are exceptionally well placed to champion the cause.

Any thoughts?

Tim

Hi

I am looking for someone who can assist with garden lighting design. This person (or company) is not a basic electrician who will simply install what we have supplied nor a sort of theatrical lightng company creating son et lumiere style lighting extravaganzas but more someone who can advise on suitable light fittings for specific locations and situations.

So do you know of someone who could help or are you that person? Ideally based in the south west (Bath) area but if you cover that area that's fine.

Many thanks

Tim