Victorian Vicarage

This garden was several denuded acres of mown lawn when I arrived. ‘We just want it full of life- every kind of life’ my clients pleaded. And that was enough for me. We agreed that we would keep all the hard landscaping that a previous owner and their landscaper had installed. It was too much […]

Laikipia

We flew into the area in a four seater Cessna with giraffe and zebra scattering on the mud airstrip. The project was huge: landscaping the area around a newly designed lodge by Michaelis Boyd Architects in the heart of a conservation site for black rhino. We used only local materials, local labour and local planting […]

Happy House

Whilst this hilltop house had been owned for a long time by the family it needed a radical rethink. This is always the best news for me. Situated at a weird angle in the land the existing gardens were extremely uncomfortable. None of the views took in the wonderfully rolling hills, resulting in a discomfiting […]

Chalkland Farm

This extraordinary hilltop site was utterly neglected and barren. A thin scrape of weak topsoil over chalk and a few squirrel-damaged trees in a rabbit infested woodland. In less than two years it was transformed into an elegant series of gardens set in quiet parkland, with red kites wheeling overhead. The hilltop location gave the […]

Tuscan Castello

This marvellous place was almost entirely derelict when I was first invited to see it. My patron remembered it from his childhood and as we walked through his words brought back the quiet beauty that had once existed. Overgrown holm oaks had once been box headed, a tiny chapel had once been in use. The […]

Fife Arms Hotel

The ‘banks and braes’ that gave Braemar its name inspired the garden at the Fife Arms Hotel. Fashioned from threads of Scottish geology, history and folklore the intimate space is occupied by landforms inspired by the glacial drumlins that flow through the Cairngorms. These braes weave diverse paths through the garden inviting us into mysterious mossy […]

Bronze Age Garden

This site has been occupied since the Bronze Age and still has a round barrow- an ancient burial site- in the land. We were invited to create a masterplan for the entire estate. We subsequently built all the dry stone walled gardens. We created and installed the infrastructure of drives and routeways, both formal and […]

St John’s Wood

This contemporary house by Alford Hall Monaghan Morris with double height glass doors needed a potent garden as it is viewed from all floors all year round. I chose a rugged mix of plants from the four corners of the earth that would improve with time to form a dense and evocative bush land. Woven […]

Edwardian Mansion

What a joy this garden build was. It started in the first week of Covid lockdown when we all thought the world was ending and so all the usual concerns of life seemed irrelevant. And that gave the whole project a sense of freedom. The garden is for small children as well as adults and […]

Waddesdon Manor, Paradise

We were invited to create a new visitor attraction for Waddesdon Manor on the site of the area of magnificent old glasshouses known as Paradise. The original Paradise was at the cutting edge of horticultural prowess in England. Guests were taken through it in little carriages drawn by zebras. Our interpretation has order beds, a […]