Turning a garden around and really making it sing is such a pleasure.

A lot of my work involves fixing up failing or failed gardens. I actually love physical gardening and so I generally am fairly hands on in bringing on a restoration plan to a stage where the garden is all working well again.

If the work requires it I provide gardeners or craftsmen that I know and trust but sometimes I work with a client’s regular gardeners and contractors.   Directing and working with existing gardeners can work really well; it  is often a great learning opportunity for a young or less experienced gardener.

Either way it’s a wonderful thing to see a sleeping garden wake up or a lost garden get found again. Its also a special moment to find a garden place where there was not one before.

Here are glimpses from  Poppy’s  Highgate Hill  Garden – having given it a good innings for over a decade  

Other jobbing gardens and projects

“Gardens can need healing on many levels….the problem can be just neglect or there is a fundamental lack of balance or flow which indicates some kind of re-design is necessary.   Any garden that does not sing  as it should  stands out a mile to me .  It does not soothe. To heal it I find that combining horticultural knowledge and experience with an intuitive sense of the spirit of place works well.”