Cottage gardening – not as easy as it looks

The whole essence of a cottage garden is its wild and natural look.  So natural that it seems as though it has been untouched by human hand..it has grown out of untended ground with little help from anyone but not so!!  Most cottage gardens take quite a lot of trouble.  Where do the plants come

Caroline’s vintage garden in Wandsworth

My garden in Wandsworth is not really a very good example of my garden design as it has evolved over 20 years with almost zero input from me!  It is almost a classic case of the “cobbler’s shoes”.  However it has also had an unbelievable bashing in the last 9 months as my son, Freddie,

6 of my favourite roses – pinks, yellows, oranges

Whenever I talk to a client about their plants and planting plan I always do my best to get them to buy in to the idea of having some roses.  I think the recent trend has been to ignore them a bit in planting plans and I’m not sure why.  They just don’t seem to

Ordered chaos? Shabby chic? New Vintage? Just love it

I was trying to describe to someone exactly what I meant by New Vintage the other day and I was left a bit speechless as there was too much to say.. Is it soft pinks with deep romantic reds?  Is it ordered chaos or shabby chic?  Is it natural over ordered?  Is it roses instead

New Vintage gardens like a puddle

“There is no concept of diversity of habitats for wildlife, of puddles for swallows to get mud from to make their nests with.  The shabby charm that once pervaded English country gardens has been lost to horticultural Brazilians”.  “Native trees are replaced with garden-centre specimens – preferably gold, variegated and purple-leaved – all shaped into

How contemporary sculpture mixes with New Vintage

How contemporary sculpture mixes with New Vintage I visited my friend Emma last week-end in Faversham, Kent.  You walk through the front door of her “town” house, through the house and very quickly find yourself in a small haven in the back garden which is hard-landscaped built on stone and broken up by lush planting

I’m loving pink

What a fabulous colour… soft, muted, adorable PINK.  Look at these…

How to create a vista in a typical town garden

How to create a vista in a typical town garden A vista or the feeling of space and distance in a relatively small garden is ambitious but achievable.  Even in a 10 acre site getting the proportions and balance is exacting so in a fairly typical London long and narrow garden this can be difficult

New Vintage in a small town plot

I have chosen my friend Posy as a case study for my New Vintage garden design theme. This is because she too has a New Vintage approach to planting and garden design.   This approach blends contemporary naturalistic planting with a palette of soft colour and every now and then a surprise of rich colour and

3 Unusual plants for New Vintage gardens

Here are some unusual plants for the middle to back of a New Vintage border.  Just add them for their originality and fun.  They are not very common and yet they are all reasonably robust so we can use them very effectively for variety and interest. Nectaroscordum are deciduous bulbous perennials with linear, garlic-scented leaves

6 great reds for a New Vintage planting scheme

In itself the colour RED is New Vintage.   Planting has concentrated on greens and whites and sometimes soft hay colours such as you see with naturalistic planting in grasses etc.  It is time to bring some colour back into our borders and this is part of my New Vintage scheme.  Chose a soft palette

Top 10 plants that recurred at the Chelsea Flower Show. All very New Vintage

Chelsea Flower Show 2014 – Planting Top 10 plants that recurred at the Chelsea Flower Show.  All very New Vintage. These plants turned up in several gardens and are clearly very much loved at the moment.  I would like to see all of these plants in any New Vintage planting scheme that I might do.