Blue Daisy - Christmas Card through the ages...

One of our eagle eyed clients noticed that our Christmas cards have a 'different but familiar' feel to them but she just couldn't put her finger on why. So, since we're all bombarded with cards and e-cards these days - and we generally don't keep them - we thought we'd provide a little 'Blue Daisy Christmas through the ages' timeline which, as you can see, does have a rather familiar thread running through them!

Jules has been involved with Blue Daisy right from the outset - although not officially until 2014 - but she has been doing our cards for us since way back when, we hope you enjoy this little trip down Memory Lane!

2009

Our first card - Robin and Snowman (v1) make their debuts.

2010

Snowman (v2) makes an appearance - we rather liked a top hat for him!

2013

Snowman gets a makeover!

2014

The double act continues...

2015

Need we say more?

2016

Snowman being I...

2017

Meet Rudy, he makes an occasional appearance...

2018

Encased...

2019

The elves are upon us!

2020

Snowman and Robin get an actual garden!

2021

Candle glow for 2021

2022

Silent night...

2023

Snowman and friends - hat parade.

2024

As you can see from our main image, baubles are the order of the day for 2024 with Rudy making another guest appearance. And if you've also been feeling a hint of deja vu when you get our e-cards please be assured we're not sending you the same card year in year out!!

We'd be interested to hear your thoughts on them, do you have a favourite? Let us know on our social media channels (links are at the top and bottom of the page)!

Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Plan Now For Your 2025 Garden

Winter border including bright dogwood stems against tree bark.

Get ahead for 2025

The end of one year and start of another often sparks thoughts of both reflection and of possibilities to come. Gardeners, of course, are masters of thinking ahead but typically, we’ve found that that many of our garden design clients are slightly less so! Often those interested in having their garden professionally designed don’t start thinking about it until the weather starts picking up in the spring - at exactly the point that they want to start enjoying their garden in full; little realising that the process from planning through to build and then to planting can actually take months.

Even if you’re not planning on working with a professional garden designer winter is the perfect time to make the most of that ‘end of one year, start of another’ mindset that is ingrained in us all. But by applying it to your garden, which often doesn’t get a look in at this time of year, it allows you to get ahead - hopefully to the point where your garden will be ready for when you want to enjoy it in 2025.

Review your existing garden

So, thinking back, consider what has worked well for you in the garden this year, what were your highlights and, more importantly, what didn’t work so well for you. Try to think about all the different elements that make up your garden - the planting, the hard landscaping and all of the people, pets and wildlife that interact with it and how, then add into the mix the weather and how that affected the use of your garden. Try to think about function and form, for example: did your garden accommodate everything you wanted from it; when you wanted it; does it look how you’d like it to look, when you wanted it to look it.

It can be a good idea to break down your review by months. So, for instance let’s start with January. You might not engage with your garden in January but that may purely be down to the weather so would a garden shelter for instance make your garden more usable in those inclement weather months? Would all weather furniture make a difference along with an outdoor form of heating? Would slip-free surfaces make your January garden life better? If you’re really not interested in being outdoors in January does your garden still give you something beautiful to look out on at that time? More structural elements in your garden perhaps, and probably way more evergreens than you currently have!

Identify improvement areas

Do this for every single month and chances are you’ll end up with a long list of potential improvement areas, and while these ideas aren’t exhaustive, if you can become aware of the gaps or shortcomings of your garden - or in some cases potential dangers that arose during the previous year (for example surfaces may have become slippery in damp weather) - you can then start planning ways to address them for the coming one. And once you know what you need you’ll then be able to consider the methods required to achieving them.

Professional garden designers

Some of those solutions may well be achievable on your own and sometimes some professional help might just be the ticket. For the most part our clients choose to work with a professional garden designer because they know what’s not working for them in terms of their garden but they can’t quite see the wood for the trees in finding the best way forward for them and their budget. They also find comfort in the idea that we can recommend landscapers because we’ve worked with them on previous builds. But either way, when a professional is involved - whether that’s a garden designer, a landscaper, or both, then for most of us that will mean finding someone reliable and that can take time. Then they have to be available, because, let’s face it, the good ones are often booked up for some time but you can begin to see why now might just be the perfect time to be thinking about your 2025 garden.

What the Great British Bake Off Can Teach Us About Garden Design... no, really!

If you’re anything like us you’ve been watching the trials and tribulations of this year’s wannabe star bakers getting to grips with Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood’s stretching, if not seemingly impossible (for us mere mortals), weekly baking challenges in the Great British Bake Off (GBBO).

But watching the initially optimistic bakers’ dozen succumb to the pressures of the signature, technical and showstopper challenges over the last few weeks it’s got us to thinking and as mad as it sounds we think the GBBO has lessons about garden design hidden in its depths.

So, without further ado, and in no particular order, here’s our take on what the GBBO can teach us about being a garden designer.

  1. Ingredients
    A core component of a successful GBBO challenge is the ingredients of a bake that combine to make a hopefully beautiful whole. It’s exactly the same for garden design – get the ingredients wrong and the results can be disastrous. When putting that ‘recipe’ together, whether for the oven or the garden it pays to think ahead. Creativity and flair make for exciting results but garden designers generally tend not to throw ingredients in on a whim!
  2. Measuring out
    Linked to the above, the measuring out of those ingredients is crucial to a good bake. Getting it wrong will change the chemistry of a bake, and from that everything else follows: taste, structure, consistency, look, etc. Get your measurements wrong in garden design and you’ll potentially be looking at a disproportionate, imbalanced result, not to mention a probable under or over spend on materials and a garden that might not be fit for purpose (paths too narrow, steps too high, patio too small, for instance). It might not feel very creative, but garden designers love tape measures and other measuring instruments. The lesson is clear - take the time to measure things out and the results will look all the better for it.
  3. Timing
    There’s no getting away from it – good baking is all about timing and the GBBO takes that timing and turns it into high pressure for the bakers every week. Garden design is a little less time sensitive for most of us (unless there’s a show garden involved, of course!) but it does still play a key role in a garden design project. Timescales from idea to concept through to build and planting can take months rather than weeks so it’s important for clients to know what’s involved before things even begin to happen; the timing of materials delivery can either help or hinder the progress of a build phase while the seasonal timing of planting up designs can have implications for cost, risk and visual impact, to name a few. Timing also needs to have a degree of flexibility and judgement thrown into the mix too – in GBBO terms that manifests itself as ‘shall I take it out of the oven’, ‘shall I leave it in’, ‘is it cooked’, ‘shall I turn it up, or down or just leave it’; these are all GBBO dilemmas that we see week in week out but similar judgement calls also need to be made in garden design projects too, many led by the weather! The lesson:– have a plan, but be prepared to be flexible.
  4. Creativity
    This one goes without saying – every week in the GBBO kitchen we see creativity in spades. A GBBO winner is never going be short on creativity and neither is a good garden designer. But creativity doesn’t have to be all singing, all dancing and showy, it can be subtle and clever too; hidden in the depths of the flavouring, and so it is with garden design too. A good, creative garden design doesn’t have to smack you in the face! It can creep up on you slowly and win you over with subtle, clever touches of genius; so don’t forget garden design isn’t all about the show stopper!
  5. Confidence
    We see it often in the GBBO – a contestant trying to face down Paul Hollywood’s sceptical blue eyes after they’ve outlined their plans to him. Garden design can sometimes feel like that, especially when presenting a concept! But we’ve also found that non-believers can and often do become converts – the proof, as they say, is often in the pudding. Paul Hollywood is big enough to admit when his scepticism was misplaced and a good dose of confidence also goes a long way in garden design where, unlike the GBBO, the ‘pudding’ will never usually get to be made unless you can win someone over to the ideas first. The lesson for a garden designer - present your ideas with confidence because if you don’t have confidence in your design your client definitely won’t.
  6. Scale & Structure
    Scale and structure crops up time and again in the GBBO – bake 36 identical these; 3 tiers of those; a freestanding this; a centrepiece made out of that – it’s not enough to make a great biscuit for instance in the GBBO: instead you’ve got to make a biscuit scene or structure and week in, week out the bakers generally rise to the challenge. The lessons are clear: a methodical, unflappable approach, calmness in the face of adversity, being able to think on your feet (and occasionally outside the box), adapt plans, avoid distractions, work to a plan and a timetable while remaining technically sound and keeping a sharp eye on the details along with a flair for 'joining things' are all required to win out. These skills need to be the preserve of the garden designer too.
  7. Consistency
    Everyone agrees – you have to be good to even win a place in the GBBO tent but when the competition starts in earnest you have to be consistent too. You don’t have to be star baker week in week out to win either, just consistently good. Consistency counts and it’s a good trait for a garden designer too – you don’t have to be a celebrity garden designer to be a good one.
  8. Expertise
    The GBBO wouldn’t be the success it is without the highly experienced and respected Paul Hollywood, Prue Leith (and Mary Berry before her). It is their expertise that adds the extra pressure onto the contestants which in turn is so engaging to watch. It is their opinion we all hang on to – it is them the contestants want to impress and to be like in the kitchen – it is them that are the safe pair of hands in the collective and proverbial baking kitchen of the nation. The GBBO wouldn’t be the same without that level of expertise – it is a key ingredient of its success – and garden designs benefit from a good dose of expertise too. Sure we can all have a go and do it ourselves – the contestants themselves are testimony to that for the most part in baking terms, but disasters do happen, quite often, and you can’t help thinking that if Paul, or Prue (or Mary) were baking x, y or z, it would be a pretty disaster-free affair. The GBBO lesson for being a garden designer: know your stuff.
  9. Humour
    GBBO's sidekicks Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond (along with Sandi Toksvig, Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins previously) aren’t to everyone’s taste but their contribution to the success of GBBO with their silly, easy brand of humour and tongue in cheek innuendos is indisputable. Their humour is the constant thread throughout the GBBO; it is the tension reliever, the stress buster and sometimes even the disaster averter. And while it’s not a requirement for a garden designer, the lessons of the GBBO apply here too – however plans go awry, and for whatever reason, hang on to your humour!
  10. Taste test
    There’s no getting away from it, taste matters in the GBBO tent and so it is with garden design too. Whether you’re baking for Paul and Prue or your family; or designing a garden for a client the desired outcomes are the same: the taster has to love the result. Hopefully the other lessons learned will contribute to a positive outcome but one of the tricks in this regard is to keep the particular taster in mind while applying those lessons. Taste is subjective after all, and there is no accounting for it as the old adage says, so it is important to cater for a specific taster (client) when thinking about garden design – it is that bespoke application of skill and knowledge that will ensure success.

So there you have it, 10 lessons that GBBO can teach us about being a garden designer. A stretch? Maybe… but silliness aside, the lessons still apply!!

The Bare Root to Border Planting Success

Acer in autumn

Evaluate your border planting

It’s a perfect time of year to evaluate your borders, and especially some of the more structural garden planting in your gardens because with bare root plant season upon us it’s a great opportunity to add some specimen plants to your borders for a much more affordable price.

Bare root plants are typically grown in a field (i.e. open ground) and are then dug up when they’re dormant, the soil removed from them, and then sold as bare root plants.  So, bare root plant season in the UK, generally runs from November through to March, making your winter garden the perfect time and place to change, create or add to your garden planting plans.    

Bare root plants offer savings

Because bare root plants aren’t containerised, they are often a lot more affordable than their potted peers which means that you can generally buy bigger, or more, plants; essentially making your budget work harder for you.  So, this is a great way to buy plants generally, but trees and hedging plants especially.

With no (usually) plastic pots to dispose of, bare root plants are also considered to be a much more sustainable and environmentally friendly choice for purchasing plants.  And as long as they are planted correctly, bare root plants are thought to establish much faster than planted container plants too and are arguably less likely to fail because they’re being planted when dormant; which also means, that less water is required than for plants that are planted in full bloom during the summer months! 

As garden designers bare root plants are a no brainer for us but for many of our clients as the weather changes, their minds turn away from their gardens in autumn and winter, often not returning to them until the weather picks up again in the spring.  Unfortunately, at this time, bare root season has ended, and with it the opportunity to avail our clients of some serious savings on plants, since most of our clients don’t want to wait until the following winter for their planting.  If this is you, it might be worth evaluating your borders now in order to make some savings on plant costs before bare root season ends.

Review and plan

We can help, of course, and our plant prices are extremely competitive, but to do it yourself look at the plants you already have and consider whether they are working together or against each other; is the border missing anything like colour or height or seasonal interest; is there enough variety of forms and textures of plants; is there a good mix of shrubs, perennials, trees, groundcover, etc; is there enough foliage, or too much foliage, too many flowers or not enough; are there any gaps that need filling, or is everything congested and could do with cutting back or dividing or thinning; does the border look and feel how you would like it to, does it fit with the rest of your garden?

Make a note of everything you’ve observed along with the aspect, size and shape of the border and then try to create a plan of it as you would like it to be. If you can draw your border and the general sizes of your existing plants to scale it will help you visualise the sizes and positions of any additional plants you may need. If you’re creating a new border the same principle applies, although obviously a lot more plants will be included on your list.

When choosing plants make sure they will work with the existing plants you have as well as the sunlight levels, space, soil type and pH that will be available to them in your border.  If you can start thinking about it now, you might well be able to make the most of bare root season too so not only could you make some savings on plant costs, but your newly spruced up border will be ready and waiting for those first rays of spring sunshine!  Win-win all round!

Don't forget where we are if you need help with your garden border planting, bare root season or otherwise! Contact us to find out more.

Cool Gardens - the pleasure of off-peak

Gardeners and garden designers often talk about extending the season of interest in the garden and for the most part we’re usually referring to plants – great plants for winter interest or autumn colour, for instance, but this time around I thought we’d look at ways of making the garden a lovely place to be beyond those balmy summer days. We’ve actually met people that don’t venture into their gardens at all from the point that the temperatures drop in the autumn until it rises again with those first sunny days of springtime, and for us, that’s way too long to be avoiding your garden! So, here are our top 4 things to think about, that if tackled, might just entice you back out into your autumn, winter and early spring garden again…

Comfort

We all love a bit of comfort but if we’re going to enjoy some throughout the cooler, wetter months then our comfort needs to be practical. Opt for furniture that can be left out in all weathers and/or design in some incidental, all weather sitting stops so that finding somewhere to sit doesn’t become a job in itself. For extra comfort choose cushions that are covered in weather proof fabrics and/or store them either in the seats that they belong to or in close proximity to them. The trick is to make the act of sitting comfortably as quick and easy as possible – if we have to work too hard at it we tend not to do it at all…

Shelter

If you have the room for one, a permanent structure will lend itself better for all year use; think gazebo type – with a roof and open sides – like in our image of Kew, here (although most domestic gardens opt for timber alternatives) - but shelter can be provided in many ways. The rain shadow of evergreen trees for instance may be all you need or the windbreak afforded by some dense border planting can make a cosy, inviting corner; even the meeting point of two fences with a bit of strategic planting can make an inviting sheltered spot. Suit the shelter to your style of garden and its environment and position it for optimal benefit and use. Anchor it by planting around it and leading pathways to it and if you’re designing your garden get that structure into your plan first so that it beds into your overall design.

Warmth

Of course for off-peak garden visitation we recommend wrapping up warm before you set foot outside of the house but to make a real event of it warmth is where it’s at! South facing walls will be naturally warmer than other aspects but for extra oomph you can’t beat a fire and for the real thing there’s a dizzying array of possibilities from corten steel fire pits to brick built outdoor fireplaces and clay or metal chimineas and log burners to suit any style. Fire pits look brilliant but if your site is even vaguely windy chimineas and fireplaces deal with smoke much more effectively. Check the eco-standards of wood burning options before buying though; the Government is cracking down on them! If you love flames but don’t want everything that goes with burning a real fire consider gel or bioethanol fires and if you just want heat without the flames gas and electric patio heaters come in many shapes and sizes including floor standing, ceiling rigged and table topping (electric heaters are generally more versatile and eco friendly than gas).

Ambience

Ambience is what will make your outdoor space one that you want to spend time in. Shelter, comfort, warmth all contribute to the character and atmosphere of a place but add lights, planting, views (whether near or far) and other decorative elements to your off-peak garden and it can be transformed into a truly magical place. Sipping a hot drink, wrapped up and warm in the quiet of a frosty winter morning is just lovely – we highly recommend it!

5 reasons to create a fabulous front garden

In all of the years we’ve been designing gardens we’re rarely asked to do anything with a front garden. Not many of us have a frontage like Kiftsgate, seen here in our image, but most of us do seem to think long and hard about what we want from our back gardens but rarely approach our front gardens with the same level of gusto – or indeed with any level of gusto to be fair – which is a shame.

When we ask clients what they want from their back gardens the lists we get back are usually long and multi-faceted but ask somebody what they want from their front garden and most people tend to lean towards the ‘somewhere to park the car’ and ‘somewhere to hide the bins’ approach, and don’t take their thoughts any further. But why stop there? We may not want to sit out and entertain in the front garden but a fabulous front garden is in reach of anyone who has one and in this blog we’re going to try to convince you why it’s worth going beyond the total paving approach to our front gardens and opting instead for a beautiful, planted but still functional space.

So, in no particular order here are our top 5 reasons to create a fabulous front garden…

This list isn’t exhaustive but when so many positive consequences can come from reconsidering and treating your front garden as a garden rather than a car park and bin store why wouldn’t you opt for a fabulous front garden?

Spring Bulbs Planting Design

Example of planting design using spring bulbs

It may seem like only two minutes since we bid farewell to this year’s display of spring bulbs but now is the perfect time to be thinking about next year. Whilst many of us have them in our gardens we’ve found that very few people we talk to consider their spring bulbs to be an integral part of their planting scheme; indeed, many people seem to make their bulb choices purely on the basis of a desire to see a splash of colour – any colour – to break the drabness of winter. But, with some design planning and bulbs’ vast variety of shapes and sizes, colours and flowering periods, spring bulbs have the potential to be so much more than just that splash of colour – they could be the show stopping stars of your spring garden design.

Spring bulbs in a designed garden border

Planting Spring Bulbs

As with all planting designs environmental factors such as aspect, light levels and ground conditions will all have a bearing on the success of any scheme. ‘Right plant, right place’ works just as well for spring bulbs as for any other garden plant and planting depth of bulbs can also influence the flowering success of them later. For instance, if you plant bulbs too deep you risk getting more foliage at the expense of flowers and some might flower late or not at all. Plant them too shallow and they might emerge too soon making them vulnerable to frost. If you don’t have a label to check, a good rule of thumb is to plant bulbs 2 to 3 times their size. So, if a bulb is 5cm high, plant it 10-15cm deep and 10-15cm away from the next bulb. Since bulbs themselves are all different sizes, this allows you plant lasagne-style with larger bulbs deeper, mid-size bulbs in a layer above and small bulbs planted on a top layer. This method works particularly well in pots but can be used just as well in borders too allowing for the maximisation of space and impact.

Surrounding Plants

Brightly coloured tulips in containers

One of the tricks of designing with bulbs, of course, is blending them with existing plants – for most of us, bulbs are an addition to an already existing scheme so the height, texture, colour and form of surrounding plants will play a key role in choosing bulbs for maximum visual effect. Most of us tend to leave our bulbs in the ground once planted but it has to be said too that once a bulb has ‘gone over’ it isn’t the prettiest plant in the garden but leaving its yellowing leaves is a crucial part of the bulb’s life cycle so those surrounding plants can also play an important role in hiding those nourishing, but not too aesthetic leaves. Alternatively, planting bulbs in pots allows us to move them out of sight after flowering so can be a great choice for areas with few ‘hiding potential’ surrounding plants.

Bulb Colours

spring bulbs in a trough container near a doorway

If you’re considering planting bulbs in a small space then it’s a good plan to stick with a single colour – mixing colours tends to make a small area look smaller whereas a hit of a single colour increases impact and makes a space look bigger too. Larger spaces can accommodate more colour, of course, but limiting to 2 or 3 blended colours and planting groups of 2 or 3 varieties of bulbs in single colour clusters can look stunning. White or cream bulbs can help blend other colours together and when used alone are brilliant for brightening dark corners.

Functional Bulbs

Bulbs can be functional too; for instance, we have some quick collections that are perfect for pollinators; bulbs in this scheme not only look good but have a high nectar content that will encourage biodiversity in your garden. We also have them to help naturalise areas or to bring a fresh spring woodland look to a garden or to make a statement with bold swathes of colour. If you don’t feel confident to design yourself and don’t want a bespoke design, collections are a quick and easy way to choose bulbs. We order for our clients in August/September – both collections and bespoke designs – so whether you’re doing it yourself or working with a designer, planning now is key for next year’s spectacular spring bulb display.

Contact us if you'd like help with your spring bulb planting design.

Garden Design Principal Principles

Clipped box balls repeated alongside water feature

Garden Design Principal Principles

Garden design – the clue is in the name – we design gardens, and like all disciplines of design, the best examples of our work – and that of other garden designers – can always be traced back to the creative application of a few fundamental principles – or rules – that underpin all we do.

Rather unhelpfully, there isn’t a universally accepted specific, set number of these rules; one camp may cite 5, another 12, yet another 9 or 7 but if you were to read all of them you would see a commonality between them.  Just as Shakespeare’s “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” so too for garden design principles – nuances may influence numbers but regardless of what you call them or how you count them – they do all seem to coalesce around a few fundamental ideas; principal principles, if you will.

  1. Cohesion – other names might be unity, harmony, repetition, colour, style – but this is all about creating something that works as a cohesive whole.  Themes work well for cohesion, for instance a contemporary garden or a cottage garden – putting a name to that theme or style brings with it a set of rules to apply to it.  You can even ‘room’ a garden within a theme, giving it a different feel in different areas but the theme itself helps maintain harmony and unity throughout supported by repetition of form or texture or colour.  Repetition and colour too can play the leading role in achieving cohesion when style or theme may not be so prominent. 
  2. Balance – other names might be order, scale, proportion, symmetry, mass & voids – but this is all about where you ‘put’ different elements within the garden and how they work with all the other elements that are there so that everything feels balanced.  Perhaps the easiest way of achieving this is through symmetry, where one side of a garden ‘mirrors’ the other side – everything on one side is balanced out by exactly the same things on the other side – but plants also play a part in balance and the same species and variety of plant can grow at different rates in different parts of the garden. If that is the case for this example, then the balance of the symmetrical design could be ruined by over or under-performing plants.  Not every garden works symmetrically, of course, so finding balance and proportionality between elements can be challenging; balancing an existing shed for instance wouldn’t be about siting another shed somewhere else but using something that carries similar visual ‘weight’ or impact in order to achieve balance.  This might be a large shrub or a mature tree for instance.
  3. Movement – other names might be transition, rhythm, flow, line, focal points, destination, perspective, depth, journey – and this is mainly about how you move through the garden, whether physically or by eye, (i.e., when viewing the garden) but also about how the garden itself can be a source of movement.  Pathways, arches, benches, water features, sculptures, specimen plants and more all give the eye or the body something to follow or move to, while rustling leaves, grasses swaying in the breeze, trickling water, bird and other wildlife all bring extra layers of movement too adding dynamism to a space.

The challenge for any garden designer is to utilise and combine these ‘rules’ in order to create something that is fit for purpose and looks fantastic too but if you’re getting bogged down with too many garden design principles and don’t know which or how to apply them, the principal principles approach might just help. 

Creating an Indoor Outdoor Cohesive Space

Creating an Indoor Outdoor Cohesive Space

One of the jobs of a garden designer is to try to make the garden feel part of a cohesive whole with a client’s house so that they feel they belong together. It’s rarely an explicit request but when we’re designing a garden, a good starting point when trying to decide where things should go is to do it with the sight lines from the house very firmly in mind.  Regardless of the size of garden if you can create something beautiful and interesting to look out at then it brings the garden ‘closer’ to the viewer because they feel more engaged with it.  We’ve talked before about creating views of the garden so that from inside the house, the frames of windows and doorways when looking out are ‘framing’ the view beyond.  In putting that ‘view’ together it’s a good tip to try to think as a painter or photographer would, in terms of thinking about fore-, middle and backgrounds; about balance, subjects and ways of leading the eye through the view.

The décor, along with the use and choice of materials indoors, can give huge cues for outdoor decisions in terms of linking a garden and home – and more on that in a future article – but one obvious way to link indoor and outdoor spaces is through the use of greenery, i.e. plant choices and planting design.  Indoor gardening is more popular than ever and as we’re becoming more and more aware, just as looking out at a view of nature is good for us, surrounding ourselves with house plants is too.

Studies show that there are both psychological and physical health benefits of indoor plants; psychologically they improve our mood, reduce our stress levels and help make us more productive.  Physically they reduce our blood pressure, headaches and fatigue.  Indoor plants – just as outdoor plants do – also bring with them a massive and versatile potential for aesthetic styling, and just as we work with such things like form, habit, colour and texture externally, so too can we do so indoors. 

There’s a huge potential then for creating cohesion of indoor and outdoor spaces through planting.  For instance, if you can bring your outdoor planting right up to your house – perhaps through window boxes or raised beds leading up to your patio doors/bifolds, etc - and your indoor planting right up to the outdoor threshold so only the glass of a window or doors separates them; it can be a very effective way of blending the boundary between indoor and outdoor. 

Similarly repeating the forms, textures or leaf shapes of indoor plants with outdoor planting reinforces the links between the separate areas.  Picking repeating/similar flower or leaf colours across thresholds has the same effect as does choosing similar styles of pots that continue across the divide. 

For many of us space can be an issue both inside and out, so as usual, when floor space is limited, we’d recommend thinking vertically.  While hedges aren’t quite an option indoors, indoor wall space can be just as effective as garden fences and walls outside when it comes to accommodating plants.  You don’t need a full-size living wall either (as beautiful as they are!).  Climbers can be used indoors or as in our image/s small ‘living pictures’ can be used to harmonise the indoor/outdoor areas just as effectively as floor or shelf standing planters.  (We were so delighted with these living pictures in terms of looks, versatility and practicality - they have their own reservoir so watering is pretty much taken care of – we are now accredited suppliers of them so do get in touch if you are as equally delighted with them!)

Of course, choosing plants for indoors needs the same consideration as choosing for outdoors so light levels, room temperature and fluctuations, plant care needs and toxicity are some of the things to be considered along with their looks, size, form, colour, texture, etc.  If you have the right plant, in the right place doing the right job for you both indoors and out then the chances are good that you’ll also have a cohesive indoor/outdoor space.

Garden Design Quick Tip - Trees for structure in small gardens

One of the elements of garden design that designers use is that of structure. While perennials and annuals come and go within a garden accenting it, it is the more permanent aspects of a garden - manmade like arbours or pergolas, or plants like shrubs and trees - that gives it structure, adding strength and often character to a space.

Trees are brilliant structural plants. When our horizontal opportunities are limiting trees allow us to capitalize upon the vertical possibilities often making the space feel bigger. They also add definition to a space too; for instance a single tree planted in the centre of an island bed defines a space in one way but a line of trees along a pathway adds a different dimension cmpletely. The age of a tree can also add a sense of history or context to a garden while the tree itself brings layers of biodiversity to a garden through the different species it supports. All in all a tree's reassuring presence throughout the seasons makes it a first port of call for any garden designer looking to add structure to a garden.

Our top 3 trees for adding structure to a small garden are:

Amelanchier - A beautiful group of trees with a great shape. As the wind blows through it you often get a silvery sheen to it which gives it an ever changing look. Its spring blossom is fabulous (our image doesn't do it justice!) and its autumnal colour spectacular.

Sorbus - all varieties are lovely delivering beautiful spring blossom , striking autumn berries and leaf colours in differing combinations. For instance Sorbus aucuparia 'Joseph Rock' has white flowers in spring with creamy yellow berries in autumn along with orange, purple and red leaves. Sorbus aucuparia 'Chinese Lace' has single white flowers in spring followed by clusters of dark red berries. Its leaves turn purple-red in autumn.

Prunus - (our main image). Prunus serrula 'Tibetica' - with its distinctive peeling bark that looks good all year round, especially in the cold, frosty winter light. It has pink spring blossom and great autumn leaf colour.