I think of the ‘Japanese’ gardens that my clients from time to time have asked me to design as a bit of exotica to jazz up an English garden. A curved granite bridge over a stream, a bank of hostas, … Continue reading
Kew 1 – the Japanese Landscape
Castle Howard – Breaking the Mould
When I first saw the Howardian Hills, that area of outstanding natural beauty with its distant views of the blue horizon and big skies I thought this was landscape perfection. Not for me the scraggy mountains of the Lake District … Continue reading
York Gate – A Perfect Small Garden
It should all be so easy. Much of the attraction of places like Hidcote is that visitors can relate to the scale and planting of the Arts and Crafts ‘rooms’ and copy and transpose them into their own smaller gardens. … Continue reading
Studley Royal – A Thoroughly Modern Garden
I have always thought that there was something curiously contemporary about the Water Garden at Studley Royal. It seems to have more in common with modern British landscapes than with Le Notre’s work at Versailles or Chantilly built just a … Continue reading
Scampston Walled Garden – A Bit of a Curate’s Egg.
From time to time a new garden opens to the public that grabs the headlines, and back in 2003 Scampston Walled Garden certainly did that. It is a garden that I should have been to a long time ago, but … Continue reading
Park Guell – Gaudi’s Garden City
I first visited Park Guell, designed by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi in the last dark days of Franco’s rule, before a resurgent Catalonia and before Barcelona had become a hip tourist destination. Then the park was a sleepy and … Continue reading