The Gardens

Please see a small selection of images below. In 2026 I will be photographing projects that were built and planted in 2025 so please check back for more images in spring.

Drought Tolerant Front Garden – Twickenham

This small front garden has to work hard – it is South facing and bakes in the summer. It needed to incorporate access from the front to the side of the house, a bin store and a tree for privacy. We restored the traditional Edwardian path and added a permeable gravel path across the garden to a bin store with green roof. A rotting and leaning wooden fence was replaced by a low brick wall with railings to tie in with others on the street. The gravel path is flanked by two borders filled with drought tolerant and mostly evergreen perennials. For textural foliage we planted Ballota pseudodictamnus, Sisyrinchium striatum and Santolina rosmarinifolia subsp. Rosmarinifolia. We incorporated edibles such as Salvia rosmariuns ‘Green Ginger’, Thymus vulgaris and Chives. Salvia ‘Filigran’ and Erigeron karvinskianus were included for their very long flowering periods. A multi-stem tree, Amelanchier lamarckii, sits in front of the living room window so the homeowner can watch it transition through the seasons, from delicate early blossom to summer berries and red leaves in autumn. This tree has a gentle and open canopy, so provides soft privacy on summer evenings, but allows lots of light in during winter. This space is now an inviting entrance that looks beautiful all year round, and requires very little maintenance.

Pocket Forest for Partial Shade – Twickenham

After building a rear extension that included large glass doors that opened on to the garden, the client wanted a beautiful green view to look upon from their kitchen/diner, and a layout that was simple, flexible and functional. We created two terraces, one in a light stone that leads straight out from house and a second at the sunny end of the garden in a beautiful dark clay paver. Between the two terraces sits a pocket forest. This part of the garden is partial to full shade, so we made the most of that aspect and planted a matrix of shade tolerant grasses, Sesleria autumnalis and Hakonechloa macra, and evergreen ferns, peppered with flowering perennials including Astrantia, Anemone, and Persicaria. Pittosporum ‘Golf Ball’ form evergreen mounds to hold the corners of the planted areas. This carpet of green sits under a multi-stem Amelanchier that lines up with the front door of the house. When the client arrives home, they glimpse this changing scene as they walk down the long hallway into the kitchen. Elsewhere in the garden, trees including Crab Apple, Cercis canadensis and pleached Hornbeam add height and increase privacy. Climbers including Roses, Jasmine, Clematis and Hydrangea are planted and will adorn the fences in time. More photos to follow as the garden grows.

Perennial Meadow for a Courtyard – Twickenham

The bones of this garden were already beautiful, with stone paving, cedar cladding and brick path and walls providing interesting backdrops. There was an area in the centre of the garden that had been covered in wood chip to replace a patchy lawn. This wasn’t a particularly useable or beautiful space, but it was an opportunity to play with plants. The wood chip had protected and enriched the soil and it was a deep and crumbly loam. For affordability, small plants in 9cm pots were bought from Arvensis Perennials and the area was filled to the brim with grasses and perennials that are happy in dappled shade under existing Acer, Crab Apple and Amelanchier. The list includes Sanguisorba ‘Red Thunder’ and ‘Tanna’, Aster and Persicaria ‘Alba’. These rise up through an underplanting of two grasses: Sesleria autumnalis and Deschampsia cespitosa ‘Goldtau’. We played with adding both a white and deep purple Scabious, usually annuals, but in this sheltered spot, they may return. The shady corner under the Acer is filled with Brunnera and Ferns and across the whole garden, a drift of the perennial Fox Glove, Digitalis lutea, ties the scheme together. This garden is an experiment in planting densely. This keeps weeds from encroaching and creates a glorious and wild composition full of surprises and spontaneity.

North Facing Front Garden – Twickenham

A gentle and naturalistic scene of greens, whites and yellows with autumnal golds from the grasses. This is a simple but glorious little front garden… It only measures 6x2m, but it is home to three small trees and an ever-changing understory of plants where there is always something in flower. The display begins with snowdrops and the pure white and shade tolerant daffodil, ‘Thalia’, who are quickly followed by bright acidic bursts of yellow from the self-seeding Welsh Poppy. Euphorbia amygdaloides var. robbiae echo the yellow poppies, their tall stems standing for months on end and the yellow is also mirrored in the frothy flowers of Alchemilla mollis. Delicate white flowers of Geranium and Erigeron karvinskianus dot through the ferns and give the impression of dappled light. Later, this white is picked up by Anemone japonica and finally the winter flowering Hellebore. And then the cycle begins again.