Entries Tagged as 'garden'
It is perhaps appropriate that tomorrow is Red Nose Day 2011. What better way to get you in the mood than to listen to an American, with a passion for gardening and an almost British sense of humour – his dry wit had clearly missed most of his American audiences but was most definitely not lost on his very english audience tonight.
Though organised by Derry Watkins of Special Plants fame (who was keen to point out that her gardens were now open on Tuesdays) – who is of course american herself, Dan Hinkley drew a large audience to the Bath University Gardening Club to illustrate a talk on two Pacific North West gardens. The climate there seemed pretty similar to Britain with some oddities bought about by its coastal location.
Tags: development · enjoy · garden design · gardening · Inspiration · Plant · weather
Vectorworks CAD software is transforming the way garden designers can work with their clients. I have recently won a job working with a local hotel to review their existing gardens and grounds – around 15 acres in total so quite a sizeable project!
Following some initial meetings the first step is to determine what planting is already in the garden and to add them to a plan, creating a report to then use to discuss with the hotel manager how we want to go forward.
Now a few years ago this would have been a daunting task involving surveying the site and then determining the plants, back to the drawing board to carefully draw in each of the plants and log them in a spreadsheet to create a report.
Tags: Avon · Bath · Cotswolds · existing tree tool · garden design · money saving · Somerset · Vectorworks · Wiltshire · working with Architects
In any walk of life training is now an accepted part of improving yourself and making progress in your chosen field. Garden Design and indeed gardening are two areas that, frankly, I don’t think you could ever have too much knowledge or experience. Every day throws us something new which is part of why I, along with many others, love gardens and garden design.
Tags: benefit · garden design · Garden Network · gardening · Inspiration · networking · opportunity
Luckily help is at hand for at least one of these programmes. Now in its third edition, ‘Residential Garden Design with Vectorworks Landmark’ by Tamsin Slatter, gives garden designers a clear, descriptive and illustrated guide to getting started with Vectorworks 2011.
Unlike the dreaded software manual, which covers every single aspect of Vectorworks whether you are a garden designer or landscape architect or an interior designer or architect, where some things will be relevant to you and others simply aren’t. Tamsin’s knowledge of both the market leading software and of garden design means that she is able to steer us towards the important, relevant aspects of the software and create a form of work-flow that can be referred to again and again.
Now we don’t need to be daunted by software manuals that are reminiscent of lengthy literary works. I would love to see this book shipping with the software so that everyone can benefit and would also welcome similar style books and accompanying exercises tackling more complex aspects of the software such as 3-D terrain modelling and perhaps some of the wonderful plug-ins that are now available for Vectorworks 2011.
Tags: 3D design · Bath · CAD · Chippenham · Computers Unlimited · garden design · Landmark · Nemetschek · Vectorworks · Wiltshire
One of my perennial favourites is the Christmas cactus which is just now starting to show its colours. For much of the year this plant stands unloved and pretty much uncared for in a quiet dark corner of a room, quietly minding its own business. Just when you have all but forgotten its existence out comes a magnificent flourish of flaming red flowers that brighten the room and lift your spirits.
Tags: Christmas cactus · houseplant · Phalaenopsis orchid
Twitter has a lot to answer for. How else would you get 25 people from around the country to visit a garden on a glorious sunny , early September afternoon.
Meeting before going to the garden it was clear that all was not quite as it might have been! In order that the 25 recognise each other we were invited to wear a button hole in the true spirit of a blind date. All was going swimmingly with assorted flora being sported until one of our number arrived wearing a half eaten digestive biscuit secured with a badly mis-shapen paperclip!
Perhaps I should explain that this gathering was no ordinary outing but a meeting of gardening enthusiasts of various persuasions found loitering with intent on Twitter and the garden we were to visit was Highgrove, the garden of HRH Prince Charles. The biscuit arrived courtesy of James Alexander-Sinclair which somehow saw the topic of conversation move on to cakes.
Tags: blog · garden design · Garden Network · Garden Organic · gardening · networking · Plant · sunshine · sustainable · Twitter
Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is a huge event but one area particularly caught my eye! …allow me to introduce the Sunflowers…
Tags: enjoy · gardening
This was my first visit on press day – with thanks to The Garden Network I was able to gain access and enjoy what is billed as the largest flower show in the world featuring the Best of British Horticulture.
As the billing suggests this is one mammoth show and so much to take in in one day – so much so that it will be difficult to do all the exhibitors justice – but I’ll make a start and add further thoughts later!
The show gardens normally define the show, but at Hampton Court they form only one of many varied garden themes and styles. So was there a strong theme that ran through the gardens? – well if there was I couldn’t detect it! Variety providing the spice of life. What was interesting however was that there were two notably different approaches to the show gardens.
Tags: garden design · Garden Network · gardening · striking display
The element of the Green Dock that I had particularly come to see however was the large rectangular formal garden with ribbons of topiarised Yew hedging trimmed in undulating waves running the entire length of the garden, crossed overhead with angled walkways.
Tags: development · garden design · gardening · imagination · Inspiration · sunshine · value
Every year the gardeners at Hidcote plant around 14,000 Tulips and as soon as they finish flowering they dig them all (well nearly all) of them out to make way for the summer planting. Why do they dig them out?
Everywhere you turn you can see how this Arts and Crafts garden of ‘rooms’ has been influencing gardens and garden designers ever since.
Tags: enjoy · garden design · gardening · imagination · Inspiration · Plant · striking display
