This garden still remains one of my favourite creations over the last two decades mainly because there are so many different design elements within the garden as a whole and it is also very photogenic! The design of this garden has gone on over 15 years and we have been appointed by two different owners of the same property.

The first part of the design was for the compass terrace which is a complex hard landscaping design using six different types of Purbeck stone. It was also a very challenging landscaping project as there is bedrock just under the surface in most places so achieving the new correct levels was quite some challenge. Great fun to do but very hard work due to the nature of the site. 

​The second part of the site was the lower terrace garden, created when the garden pavilion was built. We created the only level area for some grass that was possible as the whole garden was sloping quite drastically necessitating an enormous amount of earthmoving and ground works involved in this multi disciplined landscaping project.

This was a “Turn Key Project” and we started work two years before any building works began. This site previously was just an empty field with a stable and 2 prefab workers cottages. We started by planting hedges around the perimeter and shelter belts of trees, so that when the house was completed it was already sitting in a mature landscape.

​All of the trees and hedging were grown by us in our nursery in Scotland. We brought eight full articulated lorries of trees from Scotland and in some lorries you could only fit five trees as they were so big.

This project was another multitasking site where apart from the landscape design and contracting we also managed the project including the sinking of a new borehole and installation of an irrigation system throughout the property.
We are still working on this project!

This is again a multi disciplined landscaping project where we have designed two or three areas of the garden, however at this property the saying is “four legs good, two legs bad” therefore everything has been done for the horses!

Here we have divided up the one main field into many smaller paddocks with thousands of yards of fencing, hedging, semi mature tree and shrub planting, all with automatic irrigation systems. We have also created new drives with automatic security gates.
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We also designed and installed new areas to the garden itself including a small productive vegetable garden. 
We are currently upgrading a new private (bore hole) water supply to the house, stables and fields.

This Garden was created for a new young family with lots of children and there the garden design needed to include lots of space for the children to play safely. Originally the drive, which was shared by others, came right past the front door. We have therefore redesigned the layout of the landscape completely transforming the feel of the property whilst creating a fabulous garden for everyone to enjoy.

We have used lots of very thin Purbeck stone walling which I am very fond of. The planting is simple but with the inclusion of some interesting and rare species like Nepalese and Turks Cap lilies to fabulous bulbs, one of my favourite ways of creating diverse planting without spending too much money!

This was quite a contemporary design to accommodate a new extension for a young family.  Clients were keen sailors and therefore included soft curves to represent ships bridges. The works included new drive remodelling, swimming pools and a lot of ground works and hard landscaping all softened down with a mixture of traditional and contemporary planting.

We were brought in here by the clients to assist in the landscaping and project management of a design carried out by someone else. Originally this was an old dairy farm yard. The developers had left a real mess behind, with hundreds of tons of concrete buried just below the surface. We contracted enormous plant and machinery to dig out and remove all the concrete, excavations were carried out to prepare for swimming pools and tennis courts. This involved an enormous amount of civil engineering, to prepare ground for seeding and planting. A lot of the trees for this garden came from our semi mature tree nursery in Scotland.  We also brought in specialists to build the kitchen garden and a fabulous greenhouse.

This project was enormous fun to do but also a lot of hard work! It involved completely redesigning the main formal garden of the house. The centrepiece for the design was the Merboy Fountain. The design of this fountain was a joint project with Bulbeck foundry who cast it and it was exhibited at Chelsea flower show before it was installed in this garden. I am very fond of Stilt Hornbeam hedging and it is one of my favourite design elements for formal gardens. We also installed an automatic irrigation system using water collected from acres of roofing on the estate.

This Garden won us and award for both the design and construction of the job from the British Association of Landscape Industries BALI.  The garden was redesigned around a new gym, swimming pool and fitness suite built to the rear of the house. Access was a major issue and materials had to be handled a number of times before being used and all of the work was carried out by hand as it was impossible to get any machinery in to the garden. Lots of hard work! The design included 2 water features, low voltage external lighting, irrigation and drainage with lots of hard landscaping softened by interesting and eclectic soft landscape work.

This is the smallest garden we have ever created as it is no more than 2 m wide by 7 m long however it was also, per a square foot, one of the most expensive and complicated. In landscape design, quite often you do not see the work that has gone into creating what you see on the surface ! My client was very keen on the oriental theme and I based my design on the fabulous Ryoan-Ji gravel gardens at Koyoto with raked gravel and Sarsen stones brought from Avebury. He also liked fish and they were Koy carp in the black granite Fishtank and smaller fish swimming in
the rill running round the courtyard.

This is a formal design to a fabulously restored important Manor House in the West Country created in the 1990’s. The design created garden rooms bounded by Pleached Hornbeams and Yew Hedging. There are 2 small sunken rectangular fish ponds in 2 of the rooms. A very special garden.

We design and build many kitchen and productive gardens as so many people like to grow their own produce, it is such a rewarding past time. In this one we also contracted the Greenhouse Builders who have won awards at Chelsea, a real Gem! There are some photos of my own Kitchen garden with raised beds which keeps me very busy.

When we designed and built this garden in the late 1980’s it was privately owned, it has now been taken over by the National Trust. It was an enormous project and we had a team of 10 people hard at it for 6 months. We created a highly scented rose garden with old fashioned roses framed with box and lavender hedging. We also created a herb Knot Garden which was copied from Henry VIII’s Knot Designer.

I love this project, a simple classical design to provide the clients with a place to quietly reflect and relax. My design for the summer house had 16 corners all built out of Purbeck Stone as was the Pergola also.
We also created a small Kitchen Garden for Herb growing. We planted a Catalpa, the Indian bean tree which is now quite big and flowering profusely.

Not many people will have seen the whole process of lifting and root balling a big tree therefore here we have shown you some of the process here. The tree spade is one of the biggest in the country and capable of moving very big trees! It’s possible to move very big trees successfully when you have the right skill and machinery.

Photo no 10 shows 2 trees on the nursery, the one on the left is then shown being carried rootballed on site in No 11 and then 4 years after being replanted in photo no 12.

Planting a mature tree into your new landscape really makes a statement and with our knowledge and resources you can sit in the shade of your tree sooner than you think! 

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