McQue Gardens

Garden in the Scottish Borders - Scotland on Sunday article.

2012-01-26T18:03:00.001Z

This is a garden in the Scottish borders that I worked on a couple of years ago and which I will write a little more on in the next few weeks. But in the meantime thought I'd share an article that was written about it in the Scotsman/Scotland on Sunday's At Home magazine in September. It was a fantastic project to work on and the transformation was even better than I could have hoped for.

Late summer border - colour verses structure?

2011-08-29T10:12:00.001+01:00

It's shamefully been months since my last post, it's been a super busy year with one thing and another - going to try and write about some of the exciting projects I've been involved with over the next month or two. Thought I'd start with the most recent one - a garden I worked on which was opened under the Scotland Open Garden Scheme yesterday. A lady rang me in March asking if I could help her with plant design. I don't get asked for just planting plans very often so when I arrived I was delighted to find out she was looking for a late summer border, pure herbaceous - no structure, shrubs or year round interest required - even more rare. Coming down the stairs at the side of the house, I got first sight of the border that she wanted redone.

It's south facing, runs along the base of the wall of main terrace and is bookended by steps. The client had already started clearing it of plants, so it contained only some bulbs, Nepeta, Astanita & Peony. It was approx 14m long by around1.8m deep. Beyond wanting the planting to peak for the open day in late August, the client's brief was quite loose - no grasses, but she didn't mind what colours I chose. She asked for some Helenium, Verbena bonariensis and she was growing on some of her own Dahlia and Ricinus communis which she'd like to include if it fitted with the scheme (which it did!)

Standing half way down the lawn, looking back at the border I realised that the planting needed to be vibrant, with lots contrast in form and texture to be able to stand out against the handsome house just beyond it. So out came my favourite design & plant books, catalogues and the research began. I created a photo portfolio of plants, which the client & I looked at together on my laptop. She was very knowledgeable about plants, but I always find these really useful at this initial stage. They included the likes of: Achillea 'Gold Plate', Sedum 'Purple Emperor', Agastache 'Black Adder', Crocosmia 'Dusky Maiden', Echinacea 'Sunrise' and Kniphofia 'Nancy's Red'.

The client was pretty happy with everything on this master list, so then I then I set about refining it and thinking about planting combinations. One of my favourite books is 'Designing with Plants' by Piet Oudolf & Noel Kingsbury, and it was easy to adopt a lot of the principles they describe in here - mainly that 'Structure is the most important component in a successful planting: colour is important too but it is a secondary consideration. If the forms and shapes of plants in a border work well together...it is difficult to imagine an unharmonious colour combination arising'. So, here's the plan I came up with. I colour coded all of my plans and have included photos.

I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the combinations in more detail & the process I use to create them. In the book I mention above, the authors discuss the relationship between colour & form, with 4 main principles:

1) Related shapes and related colours - that the subtle interplay between 2 or more very similar shapes and colours can create a powerful impression. An example of this here is Coreopsis 'Sunray', Helenium 'Wyndley' and Rudbeckia 'Goldstrum' at one end of the border.

An even simpler combination is the use of the tall Achillea 'Gold plate' and the shorter Achillea 'Moonshine' - far enough apart to not jar, but close enough to make the association between the two whilst looking down the border.

2) Different shapes + related colours - the white border and the colour themed borders at Hadspen House are testament to these being successful, but I tend to steer away from overusing this. However, here the purple of Agastache 'Black Adder', Verbena bonariensis and Thalictrum 'Hewitt's Double' look beautiful and glow in the late afternoon sunshine.

3) Related shapes + different colours - this is one I use a lot, think it can be very successful. As Piet and Noel warn though 'how much contrast is considered harmonious is a matter of personal taste'. A really simple example here is the yellow Achillea 'Moonshine' and then further down the border the gorgeous coppery orange Achillea 'Walter Funcke'.

One of my favourite ways of doing this is via daisies, there are a particularly large choice for late summer borders. I've included Echinacea 'Sunrise', Helenium 'Moerheim Beauty', Echinacea purpurea 'Magnus', Rudbeckia 'Goldstrum' and Helenium 'Wyndley'.

4) Different shapes + different colours - this can be tricky if the whole border is filled with this, but if the scheme contains enough of the above three principles then I throw some of these in.What's not to like about Agastache 'Black Adder' next to Echinacea 'Sunrise'??

Or Salvia 'Caradonna', Monarda 'Ruby Glow' and Helenium 'Wyndley'...??

This was an incredibly fun project to work on and the open day was a great success raising almost £3000 for charity. I learned loads and it just emphasised that if I follow the principles outlined above then I can't go far wrong. But let me know what you think...

A cobbler's children are always poorly shod.

2011-02-05T01:56:00.000Z

Welcome to Rose Cottage. In lovely rural East Lothian. Him indoors and I are lucky enough to have moved here after years of searching for somewhere close enough to Edinburgh for work but far enough away from it all. Whatever it all actually is.

Now we've been here for 2 years and after the initial flurry of completely renovating the whole interior it's time that the outside gets some of the same TLC. Now as many of you'll know I'm a garden designer. Fixing sorry outdoor spaces is what I do. So that should be really easy, right? Hmmm. In my 'looking for an excuse as to why we've not done anything about it yet' days I tell myself it's because I've been busy trying to get my garden design business established. If I'm honest it's got more to do with changing my mind about what to do with it every 5 minutes or just plain not being able to put my garden designer objective hat on when looking at it.

We're very lucky and have got a third of an acre, so big enough to grow lots of lovely plants, but not so big it's daunting. Allegedly. The previous owners of the house were a retired couple who spent lots of time tending the shrubs and flowers, picking & storing apples from the orchard, growing lots of produce in the fruit cage and enjoying the beautiful surroundings. They left it in a lovely, well manicured state. They even left us their ride on mower so we could mow the large swathes of grass. So how come we managed to let it get into this sorry awful state?

We're both completely horrified when anyone comes to visit, most people can't hide their shock when they see the state of it. One day late last summer after planting up a particularly pretty country garden, the owner was waxing lyrical about how much she would like to see my garden and how beautiful she reckoned it must be. It was the kick up the rear I needed, and decided enough was enough. So late last year, Operation Rose Cottage swung well and truly into action. First was strimming the terribly overgrown grass back to see what we were dealing with, and even that made a huge difference.

There are 3 main parts to the garden - the above photo is the back garden, and this is where we decided to start. It's got several large trees in it (Birch, 2 Rowans, Red leafed Maple, Laburnum), as well as some shrubs, roses and a rather dilapidated pond. There is also a fruit cage, greenhouse, a wee stone byre (where we store our logs), a garage and a gravel area where we park our cars. All in all pretty ugly and uninspiring. So this is where we've decided to start.

We've taken the radical decision to convert the garage into a studio / office, so we needed to figure out where everything in it would go. No mean feat.

Getting a garden shed was an obvious first step, so we found a spot for one in the corner of the garden. Had the idea I could use not only for storing my tools, but a potting shed too. So here she is (It's a girl. Obviously). Not pretty or inviting. Yet.

And then there's the greenhouse. A great size with lots of lovely potential but full of the previous owner's junk and covered in Ivy.

So this year amongst making other people's gardens lovely, I'll be hoping that some of the magic fairy transformation dust is sprinkled on ours. This weekend the clearing out starts in earnest. Mind you, there is one member of the household who might miss the mess...

A challenging site and chocolate fudge brownies?

2011-01-18T12:30:00.001Z

I've been lucky enough as a designer to work on all different types & sizes of garden design projects and when I look back at the ones I've enjoyed the most it's usually those which are the most challenging - on a steep slope, tiny & dark or like this one. It was completely land-locked, an A-listed house which is in a Conservation area in Edinburgh's Stockbridge. Oh, and it looked like this:

The clients had previously lived in Surrey with a 4 acre garden, so they didn't know where to start getting the best out of the much smaller space. They were giving the 3 storey Georgian town-house a complete overhaul which included moving the kitchen back down to the ground floor with double wooden doors out in to the garden where they wanted to be able to dine & entertain. The also wanted a more secluded private area at the bottom of the garden, for reading & sunbathing. A place to grow some herbs, built-in seating, elements of water and using an Asian influence was also important. All the grass was to go and a majority of the plants too. So as usual a mixture of concept designs and 3D models were used to create a variety of options, of which the client chose this one:

A natural sandstone terrace would be laid leading directly out from the house. A low raised wooden bed adjoins in and gravel path (laid with boulders and planted with bamboos and an Acer) leads down to a reflective pool. A floating stone step leads owners to a secondary more private patio made up of the same sandstone as the main terrace, with a built in 'L' shaped wooden seat, backed by slightly higher planters. The terrace, patio, gravel path are surrounded by planting on all sides.

The tricky part of this build was the lack of access, everything had to go in and out through the house which adds a significant amount of time & also presented problems with where to store materials & equipment. On top of this there was scaffolding up and the garden was being used as a spare storage space. Despite this, the contractor & his guys cracked on and even clearing the garden made a huge difference.

We decided to work from the back of the garden towards the house, so the pale wooden sleeper 'L' shaped seat and raised planter were built first. The guys sanded it down so it was super smooth and even paler in colour, a clear matt varnish applied too. Although most of the plants were removed, we kept a beautiful pink Camellia and a willow leaved pear tree.

Next the pool had to be dug out. By hand. I wasn't so popular that week. An Acer which had been surviving in a pot from the clients old house was transplanted out too. We kept it really well watered and as dust free as possible and it didn't lose any of its leaves, or seem to suffer.

Contemporary horizontal trellis was put up, pool was lined and pillars for floating step was built. The sawn edged buff coloured sandstone arrived. The guys are starting to have problems with where to store stuff safely, out of the way and to keep it clean...

Small patio done, larger terrace beside house begins.

I'm lucky enough to be overseeing the build, so am there at least once a week to see what's happening. At the beginning of projects there always seems to be larger, more dramatic things happening quickly. As we get to the latter stages, we're at the stage of things like planters being built, gravel going down which still has an aesthetic impact.

We're on the home stretch at last. The stainless steel water ball is installed, beds are prepared and additional compost & top soil added.

To think that the contractor Dave and only 2 other guys have carefully carried all the old waste out and all the paving (over 40 sq. metres of it), tons of gravel, umpteen heavy wooden sleepers, top soil, cement, hardcore is amazing enough - but in the latter stages the house renovation was almost complete so they were having to carry stuff without scuffing walls, dropping any debris or making any mess. My heros!

So it was over to me to plant up the garden. The client had asked for a combination of purple, blue and white planting. One side was in semi-shade, so we used Sarcococca, Hosta, variety of ferns, Hellebore, Pulmonaria, Dicentra, Meconopsis, Brunnera & Aconitum. The other was in much more sunshine, so Penstemon, Salvia, Iris, Perovskia, Verbascum and Paeonia were planted.

Again the plants had to be carried through a very cleaned and finished house (with a Limestone kitchen floor). It's really nice keeping in touch with clients, not only to see if you can help with any future advice and tidy-ups, but being able to see the garden just a summer later made the tricky and hard work worthwhile.

Most things seem to be flourishing, and despite coming through a really bad winter only a couple of herbaceous things need to be replaced.

This turned out to be a hugely challenging project for all concerned - the contractor & his guys worked their socks off heaving, carrying and general back breaking work. The clients were very patient, open to ideas, understanding & trusted us not to make a mess of their lovely new home. Although it was tricky to try and make this garden serve many functions, to manage expectations of the clients, gee the guys up when they were having a bad day (1 metre deep pool anyone?) and deal with planners and conservation specialists, I wouldn't have changed this project for the world! What did I learn? That bribing people with chocolate brownies goes a long long way...

A front garden with not much promise...?

2010-11-30T01:37:00.003Z

When a contractor I work with regularly asked if I'd be interested in doing a design for a front garden in Edinburgh that he'd been to see, my heart sank when I heard that the client's priority was parking for his cars and originally wanted to just re-tarmac the whole thing. The contractor mentioned to him that talking to a garden designer about it could give him a space that would not only fulfil his parking needs but make it feel like a proper garden, and potentially save him money. Gathering the brief from the client I realised there was much more potential for this front garden that just a glorified huge place to park. It was large, not overlooked (it was surrounded by beautiful stone walls & electric gates) and got sun until late in the afternoon. When I documented in my design proposal that I could include 3 parking spaces but also add a place to enjoy breakfast, store wheelie & recycle bins, room for the kids to play safely as well as include lots of planting, they didn't seem too convinced. This was it before:

Not very pretty or inspiring, so I could understand their scepticism. I drew up the survey and an informal bubble diagram emerged in the process:

Trying to park 2 cars at the north end of the garden, whilst leaving space for a 3rd car and/or access to the garage seemed like quite a tall order. I had to accept that there would be more hard landscaping than planting areas, and we'd agreed that a majority of this would be pale creamy coloured paviors to tie in with the house façade.But how to not make it look like a supermarket car park...? Hmm.

The above concept was created, and using the simple device of using curves, circles and a 2nd colour of pavior really helps break the large parking space up. The area to the side of the house was very private and got lots of sunshine, so there is included a good sized circular patio, surrounded by planting, which separates it from the more utilitarian parking areas & rest of the garden. A small step from it leads to another circle which allows the clients to reverse their cars and get out of the gate easily. A 3rd contrasting circle provides an attractive welcome for visitors at the top of the stairs and helps link these to the front door.

I'm often written blog posts about the value of Sketchup (and no I'm not on commission!), especially for tricky sites on slopes and the like. But sometimes it's just really good at convincing clients that something that looks nice, but pretty ordinary, from above can look great when you're actually in it. I always prepare 3D models to clients now, it really never fails to get them to see your vision. I took these along at our first design meeting.

The not only look good from a distance, but the view at person height in the garden shows them how well the accentuated curved planting beds can make it feel like an attractive garden and not just a place to park. The plants especially on either side of the front door really help anchor the house with the landscape without taking up too much room. The kids too can zip up and down the whole garden on their scooters and roller skates in safety.

And this view showed them that the breakfast patio is tucked away and could be a nice place to be.

The clients were delighted with the design and wanted to go ahead without changing a thing. So the final design drawing was produced. As usual the clients get a copy which is done in Photoshop.

But as I've mentioned on other blog posts, the Sketchup drawing is the one that allows me to provide the contractors with the dimensions & areas for them to provide a quote. And once the build commences a great tool for marking out. I also use Sketchup to create my planting plans (more of that in another post), so the design outline can be re-used for that too. This garden had virtually no straight lines, so the measurements for triangulating centres of circles and well as line to create quite precise curves was easy to document. Marking out was a doddle!

We have started the garden now, it took quite a bit of clearing (tarmac over a foot deep in places). The weather has been against us, very wet and the guys have done a really good job so far considering how many paviors they are having to lay. We started with building the circles:

And the rest is following on quite nicely. Some bare root pleached trees are going in over the winter with the majority of the planting being done in the spring, which will hugely help in softening off all the hard landscaping that exists there at the moment.

Top Ten New Plants - well to me.

2010-10-19T01:03:00.001+01:00

We had a Society of Designers (SGD) cluster group meeting in Edinburgh last week, where everyone was to bring their Top Ten plants. There was about 12-14 of us and it was interesting to see the huge variety of varieties that people brought along as theirs. Some were their own personal favourites, others talked about most reliable ones they'd used in clients gardens. I decided to list ten that I hadn't used before this year that I'd definitely like to use in my own garden when we eventually manage to plant it next spring. So here goes:
1) Anchusa azurea 'Loddon Royalist':

I first saw this at a plant show this May and was bowled over by it's stunning deep blue flowers. It grows to about 1-1.2 m tall, but doesn't seem to need staking. For this reason I used it as an alternative to Delphiniums which the client was keen on & we planted it in a sunny site. It flowered for a long time and was constantly surrounded by bees. Lovely from early summer onwards and worked well with Astrantia Ruby Wedding, Cirsium rivulare 'Atropurpureum' and Echinacea 'White Swan'.
2) Actaea simplex 'Brunette':

I'm in love with dark foliaged plants at the moment, been asked a lot in the last 18 months to do schemes with lots of purples, reds, dark pink and white - so these works wonderfully. It's again quite tall, reaching well over a metre in clients garden this year. It has pink flushed white flowers from late August onwards, with dark purple triple lobed leaves. It has tiny little round buds before it bursts into flower, which is one of my favourite things about it, so I planted it against the rendered walls of an apartment block I was working on this year and it looked stunning. Used it with Penstemon 'Southgate Gem', Knautia macedonia (more on this below), Lobelia cardinalis 'Queen Victoria' and Anemone 'Honorine Jobert'. It can cope with damp shade too, so what are you waiting for??

3) Pennisetum thunbergii Red Buttons:

I used this in my own garden a year or two back, but planted it for the first time in a clients this summer. I'm a huge fan of Lagurus ovatus or 'Bunny Tails', but it's only an annual, so wanted a perennial that would mimic it's habit - this early flowering fountain grass seemed to fit the bill. The bright red blooms last throughout the summer, and reached a height of about 60-80cm. Planted it near Echinacea 'Fatal Attraction', Salvia 'Caradonna', dark pink Astrantia and Sedum 'Autumn Joy'. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

4) Geranium pratense 'Plenum Violaceum':

I've never been fond of geraniums, they always made me think (rightly or wrongly) of badly planted public spaces. A combination of seeing how well they were used whilst on holiday in France and moving out to a cottage in rural East Lothian which contained lots of them made me start to realise their merits. There come in many colours, some of which are very pretty indeed. I used this one with double rich violet blue flowers in a traditional planting scheme in the Scottish Borders earlier this summer. Only seems to need moderately fertile soil and can cope with full sun or partial shade. Planted next to the dark purple Iris chrysographes 'Black Form', Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' and Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora it looks great.

5) Knautia macedonia 'Mars Midget':

I've been using Knautia macedonia in my own and client's gardens for a few years now, it's one of my absolute favourites. This year I also used 'Mars Midget', which is a dwarf variety which only grows to around 50cm tall. It's flowers compare well size wise to the normal variety, and is just as deep a raspberry colour too. It flowered it's little socks off for ages after it began in July. It's planted beside Imperata 'Red Baron', Penstemon 'Raven' and Achillea 'Moonshine. Purple foliage works well, so also have it near to Actaea and in front of Eupatorium 'Chocolate' (now called Ageratina).

6) Crocosmia 'Emily McKenzie':

I'm a huge fan of Crocosmias and this one is a beauty. It goes really well with all the purple flowering plants I've been using this year but also is great with purple foliage (Sambucus 'Black Beauty', Heucheras and Phormium 'Black Velvet' to name a few). It has lovely dark red buds which open to dark orange flowers, and a favourite combination of mine are these with the Actaea 'Brunette' mentioned above. It more compact than most Crocosmias getting to about 50-60cm tall and again flowers late into the year. Another late flowering perennial it worked well for me this year was Rudbeckia 'Goldstrum'.

7) Verbascum phoeniceum 'Violetta':

Going through my purple and/or cottage garden phase how could I not include this beauty? It's often regarded as a biennial or short lived perennial, but it's still worth considering. It has the usual Verbascum saucer shaped flowers appear in around May, the colour of which is the most delicious velvety purple. It only reaches about 90cm, so good for smaller gardens. Needs a bit of staking with twiggy pea sticks to stop it flopping over. I planted with other early flowerers such as Aquilegia 'Snow Queen' and Astrantia 'Pink Pride', as well as structural shrubs such as box balls and dark purple leaved Heuchera.

8) Panicum virgatum 'Shenandoah':

I'm a huge fan of the grass Imperata 'Red Baron' so thought I'd give this a go as an alternative this summer. It get a good bit taller (around 80-90cm) and it can cope with drier summers (not really a problem up here!). It starts off green leaves which start to turning dark red at its tips in late June/into July and then burgundy in the autumn. It has teeny weeny pinky red flowers in autumn which shimmer and froth in the sunshine. It's needs a sunny position and looks good with other grasses (I used it near Pennisetum mentioned above) and late summer perennials (Echinacea, sedum, Asters etc). I have also used it nearby Acer 'Bloodgood' which worked a treat. I was super excited to see it planted en-masse on the High Line in New York recently, huge swathes of it planted alongside Rudbeckia subtomentosa. That's a whole other blog post...

9) Schizostylis coccinea 'Alba':

Schizostylis is a well known late flowering variety, I've used S. 'Major' with it's large deep red gladioli-like flowers before, but tried this one for the first time. It has spikes of really distinctive starry white flowers in September and reaches about 60cm high. Looks good again with other late flowering varieties - I used Sedum 'Purple Emperor' and Crocosmia 'Lucifer' and think it'd good good next to grasses too.

10) Thalictrum delavayi 'Hewitt's Double':

I'm for ever using Verbena bonariensis to get late summer transparent planting and thought I'd try this Meadow rue to see how it fared in a garden in the Scottish Borders where Vb might not too do well. I'm in love. It has dainty light tiny pom pom flowers that looks like a purple mist hovering above all the plants around it. It has dark purple stems, reaches over 1.2 metres tall and we found that when it was grown in a group they don't need any support. They work well with heavier bolder flowers - we had Coreopis, Asters, Echinacea, Anemones and Monarda. They also make great cut flowers.

These are all definitely going in my new garden!

For someone who doesn't like yellow...

2010-09-17T00:50:00.011+01:00

I've been working on a really lovely garden project down in the Scottish Borders since late last year. The clients have been really brilliant to work for and it's been a great opportunity for me to tackle a more traditional design than normal. When we started talking about what plants they'd like to include, Joan talked about her favourite colour being yellow. 'Eeek' I thought - I have gone out of my way to avoid yellow in my own garden and up until now, believe it or not none of my clients wanted to include it either. They usually ask for stuff like this:

or this:

or these:

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I started working on the planting plan, trying to figure out how I was going to make it look exciting and hang together well. I presented the scheme and mood board to client and she seemed to like everything I had chosen. It got planted up at the end of August and I went to have a look at it today to see how it's looking a few weeks on. To my complete surprise I have fallen in love with many plants and combinations that I never would have tried had she not wanted to include so many yellow flowering varieties. Here are some of my favourites:

1) Rudbeckia 'Goldstrum' - why had I never included this in a planting scheme before?? Goes beautifully well with dark purple foliage. I've got it next to a Physocarpus Diablo (thanks Belinda for that great idea!) and there are also purple Salvia nemorosa 'Ostfriesland' nearby.

2) Lupinus polyphyllus 'CamelotYellow' which is a very pretty pale colour. Again I don't normally go forsuch 'quiet' shades but I really like this too. It's flowering quite lateand next to Echinacea purpurea it looks fab.

3) Hemerocallis Hyperion is a stronger yellow than I thought it would be, but again with the surrounding hot Crocosmias and Heleniums they work well.

4) Kniphofia Alcazar: This one's a bit of a cheat, it's not strictly yellow and I've used it in gardens before. But still worth including. It's next to Aster × frikartii 'Mönch' and they are unexpectedly good together.

5) Achillea 'Moonshine': I've used Achillea in lots of gardens, but usually the red and pink ones. Red Velvet is a favourite as is Cerise Queen. This is the staple of any late summer flowering border and I will definitely be using it in my garden when I eventually get round to planting it up.

6) Coreopsis verticillata Zagreb: Gavin at my local nursery, Macplants helped me with this little beauty. Joan also asked for lots of daisy like flowers, so this seemed a good choice - it's got really nice fine feathery foliage & is still flowering it's little socks off.

Working on this garden and on this planting scheme is the most fun I've had in ages, it's been really nice to prove my daft pre-conceived ideas wrong about how twee and daffodil like using yellow can be! PS Included this last photo as the Asters are looking brilliant just now - not exactly yellow, but the centre has to count?? No point trying to change a girl's taste too quickly..

I'm a designer - 3 years on?

2010-08-18T16:59:00.001+01:00

I realised recently that it's been 3 years since the completion of my first proper design job, and as well as wondering where the devil the time has gone, I started thinking about how different my business, the projects I work on and how I approach them is now to back then. And what have I learned in that time??

1) It's bloomin' hardwork: I've worked longer days than I ever have before. Despite beingdetermined to have at least one day off a week, invariably I find myselfsneaking off to check my emails or visiting clients on a Sunday. Now I'm notcomplaining, it comes with the territory of getting any new business up &running - I just don't think I was realistic when I started out about how muchtime time being a designer involved! But it has been completely worth it -despite starting up just as the recession began my business has steadily growneach year. I've had 3 times as many clients this year as the 1st, and the size& complexity of the some of the commissions has grown too.

2) It can get a bit lonely: unless you're lucky enough to work in a design studio, most designers are sole traders and spend many days working on their own. I found as time has gone on and I am getting more gardens built, I spend more time with contractors and clients, so the amount of days I am completely on my own has dropped, especially this year. But there are other ways of beating the loneliness - I have found that joining my local SGD (Society of Garden Designers) cluster group was one of the best. Was able to get advice from designers who had been in practice for a while, attend various events & talks and just have some folks around who understand when things weren't going so well. Many of them are now friends, who I socialise with regularly.

3) Don't be afraid to ask questions: even after gaining a GD qualification, there is lots we need to learn when we leave college. Again, don't think I was quite prepared for how much! But one thing I know is not to try & pretend you know about something that you don't - can get you in all sorts of hot water. Most clients would prefer that you were honest and told them you didn't know the answer right now, but you'll find out for them. Having good relationships with contractors, landscape suppliers and nurseries means you always have someone to turn to get advice from. And this is another good reason to join the SGD.

4) Use on-line resources: I have found websites and online communities an invaluable resource. I have hooked up with lots of other designers on Twitter who regularly pass on useful information, and are just nice to chat to! Sites such as LandscapeJuiceNetwork has forums where you can usually get technical advice. I have written a blog post about this (http://mcquegardens.blogspot.com/2010/03/im-designer-looking-for-work-now-what.html) but having a website is taken as read now. I am getting more recommendations now, but it was setting up a website when I got started that got me much of my initial work. Make sure you update your website portfolio at least once or twice a year, I am in the middle of re-vamping mine completely. Blogging about current projects also lets clients see that you are an active garden designer.

5) Diversity: it can take a while to earn a decent living from being a garden designer, and there are invariably going to be quieter periods in the year, especially over the winter. Apart from just pure garden design there are lots of other ways of working in horticulture and I've realised that I shouldn't discount other ways of making some money. I was offered a lecturing job, and my initial reaction was of terror and to turn it down. I have now been teaching GD and Horticulture students in Project Management, Specification & Job Estimation for the last 2 years. It's only for one term, but it earns me as much money as I'd probably earn from a decent sized design job. I really enjoy doing it and as a result I was involved in working on a show garden at this years Chelsea - http://mcquegardens.blogspot.com/2010/06/fun-at-chelsea-2010.html

Many garden designers I know do garden maintenance - specialised pruning and the like. It's good for enhancing your plant knowledge and some maintenance jobs can lead to planting or full design work.

6) Don't be frightened to toot your own horn: by having a website we are showing our potential clients (and the world) what good work we are capable of. So why stop there? There are lots of ways of getting your name out there - I know a few designers who have had local newspapers feature interesting project that they've worked on and it is potentially free advertising. The first design job that I mentioned above was featured in the SGD Garden Design Journal Review of the Year 2008:

And then another featured in the SGD Review of the Year 2009:

Not bad for someone in her first 2 years of business?! Toot toot.

7) Be prepared to get your hands dirty: I mentioned working hard and not being afraid to ask questions and both of these can be nicely linked together by getting your hands dirty. I worked hands on building some gardens, learning how to lay paving, mix mortar and build decks. It gave me an invaluable insight to a landscapers working day, got me lots of good landscape & nursery supply contacts and improved my knowledge of costs of materials, labour, plant hire. All of these have given me a source of people & organisations to ask advice of and contractors who see you have a practical knowledge of what you're designing are much keener to build your gardens. Many landscapers, rightly or wrongly, have a perception that working with designers is more trouble than it's worth and all we do all day is colour in and point at things (I wish!). By being able to talk to them about technical details and ask the odd question gains a lot of respect, and I really enjoyed doing it. One thing most designers I know bemoan is being able to get good contractors to build their gardens - doing the above certainly helped me. PS This isn't me working hard!

So there you go - it would seem I have learned quite a bit in the last 3 years - I have grown in confidence, my designs have improved and this feels like the best job in the world. Well most days anyway.

Using Sketchup & Photoshop for design work - part II

2010-07-13T00:00:00.001+01:00

It's been a few months since I wrote about how I use Sketchup and Photoshop for my garden design work. Got lots of feedback and correspondence about it, so thought I'd look at another one. The previous one was in my first year of business, a flat, small and relatively straightforward garden. This one was late last summer, about 18 months later - although it too is small, it is very steep (2 metre drop over 10 metres long). It was also quite tricky to survey, had lots of vegetation, poor sight lines and a rockery that crumbled under our feet when we stood on it.

Again we did a radial survey, using a dumpy level, compass and measuring tape. From it I was able to draw the survey at 2D which has the boundary, where lawn was and North point:

As before I use this 2D outline to create a basic design. This is the only part of the process that is done with paper and pencil - these are just fairly small thumbnail printouts, which allows some basic design work which provides the basis for the final design. The brief was to clear the garden, create contemporary terracing and include a path to the front door. This curvy path concept was created:

These get scanned and imported into Photoshop, where they are given a bit of colour for the presenting:

Next I was able to use the heights we'd taken at all the key points to create a 3D contoured plan. This is done using Sketchup Sandbox tools (the From Contours option), which gave me this model:

I then also import the scanned concept drawing into Sketchup which allows me to create a properly scaled paths, walls but more importantly see how those will work in the context of the sloping ground. First, get the 2D elements working:

Then using my survey data, drag up all the walls, steps and path to the heights - really easy to do in Sketchup using the Push/Pull tool. This gives me a model which looks like it has really scary tall walls:

But once it is merged with the 3D model of the survey, then where steps and walls work (or don't!) become apparent:

As well as being able to double check whether this design makes any sense to build, I find it a really useful tool for presenting to clients, so as well as showing them the Photoshop concepts I have this model which I can show them. I take my laptop and am able to let them see how it feels walking up the path, view from the house etc. Really invaluable I find, especially for gardens with as many level changes as this.

Now for the final polished Photoshop treatment - this is a mounted board that gets given to the client.

The next phase is where Sketchup really comes even more in to its own . It allows me to give the contractor 3D views and lots of measurements to not only price but build the garden. Each area of paving, walls, gravel paths is calculated automatically, so can be labelled easily and it is great for setting out on site too.

As well as measurements I can triangulate off known points (the bottom step on the left hand side) to get exact dimensions and curves of walls. Genius, accurate and much less work than mucking about with a scale ruler I reckon.

Anyhow, build went very well and here are some pics of during and finished.

This is it all rendered and then painted in shade matched with exterior paint:

It got planted at the start of May this year, and looked like this (excuse the dirty walls, I hadn't hosed them down yet!):

This is it only 7 weeks later, bit of a grey rainy day, need to go back and photograph when it's sunny.

Although it was a pretty small garden, I would have found it much more daunting and difficult to tackle if I hadn't used Sketchup to realise the levels, paths and walls and using that same outline to create final drawing for client in Photoshop. Throw away your drawing boards and don't spend a penny more on pencils & tracing paper!

Fun at Chelsea 2010

2010-06-12T22:47:00.003+01:00

It's been far too long since my last post, things are so busy with one thing and another here. Chelsea is now almost a distant memory, but thought I'd pop up some photos of our time down there. We had a complete blast - being inside the showground for the build up was an amazing experience, it was good to see we weren't the only ones that were last minute and a bit disorganised. Here's the first few days:

The perspex screen goes up and the wind filtering barriers are installed and working, these look lovely when they turn slowly via a remote control.

Help! It's raining!

The plants start to go in. It's much harder than we think to make the planting look naturalistic.

And the green roof goes on.

The back screens get their lovely graphics added. Very proud as it's my husband's done the art work for them despite not even knowing what an Alder tree is.

After 9 days on site and many many long days we are done. Huzzah!

Getting to stay late on the Tuesday night for the parties was great fun. Swanned around the other gardens, blagging some nice food & free bubbly.

When we got a chance we had a peek at how everyone else was doing. Watched the folks on the Japanese garden brushing moss with paintbrushes. Now that's dedication.

Favourite time of day was first thing in the morning:

Before this happens:

Anyway, it's back to life up in Edinburgh now, time to catch up with all the design projects that have been going on since I left for the adventure in London. The students have all finished their exams, assessments are all marked and they are off to try & make their own way in the design world. I feel incredibly lucky to have been involved with them and their vision. Now all I need to do is figure out if I'll ever do one of my own...!

SAC Strutt & Parker Chelsea Show Garden

2010-05-13T09:25:00.013+01:00

Well, that's the SAC students all packed up and off in their big lorry down to Chelsea to put together their show garden. They've built a lot of the garden in advance up here in Edinburgh, so they are hoping that it keeps things a bit less frantic on site. Here are some of the photos we've been taking of progress over the last few months that follows the Chelsea adventure. First of all the garden itself. It's a 21st century croft which reflects concerns about sustainability & renewable energy whilst adopting contemporary styling. Native plants, a water rill and insect homes provide ideal conditions for birds & insects. Elevated design drawing:

Here's some wood and teeny weeny plants, what can they be turned into...?

Within a few months they managed to turn the pile of wood above into a base, frame and the side of a house:

Some beautiful details in the garden is the slate rill and shallow bee/bird bathing pool. Once water is running down it, it'll look really stunning.

There are also yew & willow screens which divide the garden from the highlands beyond. I've never seen Yew wood before, it is a lovely rich colour. The engineering students from Edinburgh university have created a mechanism for making them rotate, which is a sight to behold.

The plants are filling out a treat, but they need constant attention & watering. Trying to get them all to flower & reach their peaks just at the right time has meant a lot of moving plants in and outside.

The students have all worked really hard, especially in the last few weeks where quite a few of them have barely had a day off.

It was a very frantic day yesterday, finishing off some bits & pieces before loading up the truck with the garden and some of the larger trees.

With pretty limited resources and lots of hard work they have done an amazing job. I'm joining them down there later next week, which I'm super excited about. If any of you find yourselves at the show next week, come by and say hello.

Christian Dior's French Fragrant Garden

2010-05-07T19:01:00.005+01:00

Being involved in a show garden at the Chelsea FlowerShow, I was interested to see the ‘ChristianBefore Dior’ garden. Not only because of my love of all things French but becauseIan & I were lucky enough to happen upon the garden that inspired it oneday late last summer. We were holidaying on the Normandy/Brittany border and decidedto drive up to Granville. Whilst walking along the sea front we noticed a signfor the Christian Dior Museum & Garden at the bottom of these amazingsteps. So up we climbed.

We discovered that it was his childhood home, Les Rhumbs, and it was perched on a cliff-side facing out towards the Channel Islands. First we arrived at a raised stone terrace, which has a spectacular view of the sea and Granville.

The wooden seats & pergolas are a pale oyster-grey, and the terrace is surrounded by hawthorn bushes and roses - the pink and grey scheme, was one of Dior's favourite combinations. Nearby is a walled garden which contains a simple rectangular pool. Jasmine, honeysuckle, peony, hydrangea, palms, passion flower and roses are planted and an adjoining wooden pergola, designed by Dior, supports plum trees and more clambering pink roses.

At the end of the garden, perched on the clifftop, is a rose garden, breathtaking in its position. You reach it along a path covered by a second pale-grey arched pergola, another of Dior's designs, which creaks under a mass of climbing roses.

Huge swaying bamboos are planted near the entrance of the garden and guide you past a maze-like knot garden containing box and hazel hedging planted with a mixture of lilies, camellias, hydrangea, roses, geranium and lots of other colourful and beautifully scented planting.

An amazing house & garden in a stunning location. I'll look forward to seeing how the Chelsea show garden looks in a few weeks time.

Who thought building in February was a good idea?

2010-04-12T23:39:00.018+01:00

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post, had hoped to put in an update or two before now, but time has just got the better of me with the spring madness and all it brings. Thought I'd add an update about the build we started in the middle of February - the post from the 18th of Feb has drawings, 3D models and describes the client brief. We've been pretty much finished the landscaping for a few weeks now, we were just waiting for the walls to dry and then get them painted, which should happen in the next few days.

These are photos from the survey, you can see the existing patio is fairly dominant, making the garden feel very wide and shallow. Some sort of dining patio was required, as was a place to dry clothes, but we've cut quite a bit of it away as you can see from the photos below. The design also involved replacing the low planter at the front of the patio with a step which helps link the existing patio with new garden. This was the first week and the guys made amazing progress in that first week - marked out, foundations dug and filled, patio cut away, one planter built and the corner seating area is well on it's way.

The weather turned especially bad a few days later and the conditions were terrible - incredibly cold and unpleasant, making wall building almost impossible and the site turned into a boggy muddy mess. And then the snow returned, which looked pretty but pretty much stopped us in our tracks.

The next week they boys managed to get the walls, seat and water wall/pool block work all finished. We've included small stainless steel rectangular lights and a steel water blade, which are built into the walls as they go. The deck frame was also built at this time.

A week later the walls were all rendered and the the lawn laid, which is edged with stainless steel, which keeps it crisp and clean.

They have done a great job too with cutting away old patio and re-using some stone for new edges and steps.

The hardwood deck is now down and the seat topped with matching wood. The boards have been left loose so that we can paint the walls when the weather's better and everything's dried off a bit. We've been trying out various Farrow & Ball shades of off white, which all look remarkably similar! This photo was taken about 10 days ago, at least the lawn is getting a good watering! The fences are being painted a very dark shade of purple, which will make a great back drop to the planting, which should be completed in the next few weeks. More pics then - hopefully in nicer weather...

With everything that the weather had to throw at us this was a pretty difficult build, but the contractor and his guys did a great job, as ever. Client seems pretty pleased and looking forward to gardening and sitting in it this summer. I enjoyed the project too - the clients were great, really friendly and enthusiastic. I figured out how to take a fairly dominant feature & make it (hopefully!) feel integrated with the rest of the garden, and learned how to make a wide shallow plot feel a bit deeper, more interesting and usable.

Branklyn Garden - plants and design concepts

2010-03-29T01:21:00.004+01:00

With the long dark winter just about drawing to a close, our minds turn to spring time and all the lovely plants that we'll be seeing in the next month or two. It reminded me of a college visit to Branklyn Garden in Perth when I was a horticulture student. I had no notion of working as a designer then, just knew that I loved plants and wanted a job that allowed me to be near them every day! Looking back at them tonight, once again I'm reminded of the importance of texture, colour, light, repetition, interval, shape & form, scale and rhythm in not just planting but every aspect of garden design. First, here's a great example of how invigorating just using green can be:

And even more visually exciting it can be with just the introduction of a small amount of colour. The difference between the Gunnera and Candelabra Primula highlight size and scale.

This hosta and Birch tree emphasise texture in its simplest form. Beautiful.

Look how the cup/bowl shape of the Gunnera is echoed by those of the himalayan poppy.

I'm a huge fan of the Christopher Lloyd approach to colour and love seeing more vibrant combinations in gardens I visit. In my own garden especially I don't get too worried about following the rules of what is 'good taste' or should work well according to pure colour theory. The best combinations can often be accidental. I'm really into orange & purple at the minute, here's a couple of zingy examples I saw there:

Often the same plant but in different colours work well. These pink and purple Aquilega are lovely together.

And these bright pink & marmalade Candelabra primulas are probably not to everyone's taste, but I think they're great.

Look how the light bounces off these grasses, lovely lovely lovely.

And how well they work in the middle of a bed of pink geraniums.

At Branklyn they also have some beautiful maple trees, the colours of which were so vibrant. The sunlight hitting the green palmatum one from above was amazing, as was the light filtering through the red leaved more dissected one.

Lastly just some flowers I like - their colour, shape and forms are stunning close up.

Go and visit - any time of year is great, but in late May/early June the show of Azaleas and Himalayan Poppies is stunning. http://www.branklyngarden.org.uk/

I'm a garden designer - now what??

2010-03-18T20:19:00.007Z

There is a 'Renew, Refresh and Reinvent your Garden Design Business' SGD event this weekend in Edinburgh, and we are all looking forward to hearing Andrew Fisher Tomlin talk about business plans, improving profitability and finding new marketing opportunities. With the latter subject in mind, the Edinburgh cluster group got together for a Social Networking introductory night looking at everything from Facebook, Twitter and writing blogs. It all got me thinking about how we get work as designers, and how it has changed even in the short time I've been practising as a designer. We leave college with a few designs in our portfolio, but what next?

1) Company identity - once you've thought of a name for your business (now always easy in itself), you need to sort out a logo which represents your business and targets your desired client base. I spent hours agonising which fonts to use, what colour any text or graphics should be. As this will probably be used for any business stationary, websites, flyers, van graphics, banners and marketing boards it's worth the extra effort and time to get it right at this stage. From this basic logo:

We were able to produce this as a flyer (A5 sized, nice silk finish postcard):

2) Make people aware that you're open for business. As well as creating a website, I targeted certain streets, popping these flyers through doors. This can be hit & miss, lots of walking with no end result. I was lucky in that I got a big enough planting job from my efforts to cover the cost of getting them printed. Most people of course now know the benefits of using a website, and that should be high on the list of anyone who's starting up as a designer. This is the basic template for my home & portfolio pages.

It can be tricky as being a new designer we won't have many images to use for a portfolio page, but even getting a basic website with your contact details, a little about yourself and some examples of college or any practical projects you've been involved with will help. Getting your website optimised is as important as a good design - my website went live in the December and I got my first commission directly from it around 6 weeks later, and another a week or two later. From then I've never really looked back - a majority of work now comes through my website and now that I've got a few projects under my belt, via word of mouth too.

3) Other advertising. I have used both Yell.com and Yellow Pages, neither of which worked terribly well for me. I have leased a van, got livery on it and have a couple of jobs as a result of it being parked outside clients houses (one even from being at Ikea!)

I also have a good quality metal board outside any gardens (ask your clients if this is okay first!) and from the one below I got another job nearby just the other day.

4) Social networking - so most of the above are probably fairly obvious, tried & tested techniques. But as well as having websites, many of us are now discovering the joys of social media & networking and how they too might help improve our businesses. Facebook is no longer just seen as a way for teenagers to keep in touch with their friends (I sound old!) - there is now 'Pages for Business' which we can use as almost a mini blog. I've seen designers post up regular photos of current projects, instructional videos, links back to their main website on these. Magazines, landscape & furniture suppliers are just some of the others I've found. Twitter has lots of designers 'tweeting' every day - I've found lots of links, photos and other useful information on there. Instead of the information overload that many people think it is, I only follow people who post information that's interesting & useful to me, and treat it like reading a very bespoke newspaper or magazine!

Writing a blog has been popular for a while now, I've just started blogging this year, not only writing about projects I'm working on, but also about other experiences I've had since I started working as a designer. I have also found an amazing amount of great designers & gardeners who write blogs. Many designers have a link to their blog from their main websites. This is a good way of potential clients seeing what we're up to in between updates to our website that we realistically only get a chance to do once or twice a year. Being involved with a Chelsea show garden this year I'm enjoying reading about Tom Stuart Smith's & Robert Myers preparation for their gardens there.

Duncan Heather posts lots of useful advice, and many of his students also have great blogs, talking about projects they've been set and experiences they've had. Check: http://thestudentgardendesigner.blogspot.com/ and http://jtgardendesign.blogspot.com/ . One of the best blogs I've ever seen though is at: http://greayer.com/studiog/

So as well as getting a lot of useful information can all of these help us get additional work as designers? Getting more traffic to your website will help improve your Google rankings, which is no bad thing. For many companies one popular use for this new technology is social networking between businesses and their clients. Companies have found that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are great ways to build their brand image. They help to create brand awareness, for recruiting, and even help us to learn about new technologies and competitors.

This technology is still very much in it's infancy and it still really remains to be seen how successful it is in getting us any additional work, but it'll certainly be interesting to see how it can be combined with some of the other more traditional methods getting work in the future.

Lost in France - an unexpected find on a buttery yellow cliff-side.

2010-03-10T11:55:00.004Z

Whilst holidaying in the lot et garonne region of France a few years back Ian and I happened upon this garden - Marqueyssac, near Castelnaud in the Dordogne - almost by accident. I was just starting out on my career as a garden designer at the time, and although I thought it was an fantastic place, I don't think I completely appreciated how well crafted and beautifully designed it is until later. Was looking through some of my reference material for some design inspiration, and thought I'd post up some of the photos we took. It feels like the gardens are clinging to a lovely buttery yellow stone cliff-side, with a river winding it's way in the valley below. You enter through a loggia, and are faced with a lovely château:

But it's what's nearby that really blew me away - they call it the Bastion, and it is full of the most amazing topiary I have ever seen. Lots of billowy cloudy shapes, lollipops and spirals.

There are even rows of tall 'soldiers' which really made us feel as if we weren't alone...

A walk towards to the chapel allowed us to peer right over the cliff to the Dordogne below.

After a stop to play on the see saw on the esplanade we carried on past the Waterwalls through into the forest, where we saw the most unusual sculpture. Ever.

At the peak of the forest/cliff was a poet's hut where we huddled out of the rain in for a while.

Even the paths were imaginative!

A great, magical, mysterious garden that I can highly recommend. Made all the better for finding it by accident! The website could be a bit better, but you get the idea http://www.marqueyssac.com/index1.html

Sketchup & Photoshop - using for design.

2010-03-01T23:36:00.004Z

Thought I'd write a post about how I go about creating my designs, the drawing techniques & software that I use. When I left college I was armed with some Google Sketchup knowledge and over the last couple of years I've developed a technique where I use it & Photoshop to create all my drawings (concepts, 3D models, final client presentation and all the files a landscaper needs to price the build). The case study below was very early in this process and I've refined it quite a bit, but thought it'd be a good place to start. The garden was 10.7 x 8.5m in size, the client wanted a dining patio, some lawn, and lots of colourful planting - the garden only got sunshine until tea time and the large shed (2.5m x 2.5m) was to stay. The process of design then is as follows:
1) Survey - carry out a radial survey (requiring dumpy level, compass, tape measure and a helper). All the points can be easily plotted into Sketchup (using the protractor & measuring tape tools). In it's simplest form you'd end up with an outline of the garden to scale:

2) Concept sketches: This is then used to start the design process - the only part of the process where a paper and pencil are used. It's a form of bubble diagram/concept drawing. These are scanned and imported into Photoshop where they can be edited and shifted around a little. So go from these pencil sketches:

to coloured in concepts that form the first phase of discussions with the client. Once they're in Photoshop, they take virtually no time to firm up - can change material palettes, shapes, colours, positions of sheds with ease. I hand draw all the assets using a Wacom Cintiq 21UX graphics tablet:

3) 3D models: along with the above concept models I more often than not take 3D models of the garden designs. Because I'm using the layout I created from the survey (which was also the basis of my concepts) much of the hard work is already done. I normally pick what I think is the strongest design to model, so in this case I chose the first concept from above and it took about an hour to model:

4) Client presentation: I take the concept drawings and Sketchup models on my laptop to present to the clients, barely a piece of paper in sight. It's usually then very straightforward to agree a final design based on this modular approach. In this example, the client had asked for the shed to remain in its current location despite it being in a dominant position in the garden, not a very nice focal point - these models helped them see what would happen if we moved the shed over towards the house. Another hour or two using Photoshop allows a bit of further tweeking to create:

5) Final design: The drawing for the client is easily finished off (plants, label & logo added), printed and delivered. They very much have a hand drawn unique style I think, but as this process has developed I have created all the stone, gravel, lawn & brick textures as well as a variety of trees, shrubs & herbaceous plants. They're stored in a master file which allows me to simply drag them into each new drawing, saving even more time. More on this in a later blog methinks (again).

6) Getting quotes/The Build: The great thing about Sketchup is that once the design is modelled you can re-use it to figure out all your Sq. M and measurements. I use these for a Spec/Bill of Materials type document that I give the contractors (in an Excel spreadsheet so they just need to fill in the costs) to get a price. It's also great when it comes to building the garden - to create a Laying Out drawing is a doddle! I've thrown my scale ruler away....

Stylish Birds.

2010-02-23T19:50:00.001Z

Nope, nothing to do with well dressed women, but nice looking accessories for our feathered friends. Was looking for a feeder and bird house for a garden I'm working on - a couple who are very design savvy and didn't want the average wooden ones that most of us have in our gardens. Found these and they are really reasonably priced. The first is a wall birdball, its hole is large enough to allow easy access for Blue tits, Coal tits, March tits and long tailed tits but small enough to keep out predators:

Next is a peanut feeder, really like this blue glazed one. According to the blurb its specifically designed to allow small birds such as tits, sparrows, nuthatchers, finches and woodpeckers to feed yet deter larger birds and squirrels.

This branch bird feeder stand is beautiful too - its made from English Ash and made in Cornwall.

Can find them on: http://www.modetwentyone.co.uk/garden-c-27.html and http://greenandblue.co.uk/branch_stand.html

Plants glorious plants.

2010-02-23T01:15:00.006Z

Been thinking quite a lot about plants and planting plans over the last few days - we had an SGD (Society of Garden Designers) meeting in Edinburgh tonight where we all discussed how we take care of the planting part of the design process - everything from how we gather the brief, draw up the plan, source the plants, planting itself. There were about 14 of us there, all with different levels of experience and it was fascinating to hear how everyone goes about it. Here's what we discovered:

1) most of us gather a basic planting brief when we first meet our clients where we'd talk to them about colour, maintenance levels, style. It helps with the initial garden design, but many of us went back to the clients once the final garden design had been agreed to firm up the exact plants for the garden. I tend to have a minimum of 2 meetings with them - first to take an electronic moodboard with me (where would I be without my trusty laptop??), where we can get a flavour of the plants they'd like. I find photos help a huge amount. Next we'd meet to talk over the final list before I go and order them. At this stage I prepare an Excel spreadsheet with all the plants listed - give this to the nursery for them to price plants for me and also give a copy to client so they can see how their money is being spent. So here's the kind of thing I did for a client who wanted a purple, blue and white planting scheme, one side of the garden was in shade, the other side sunny. They wanted colourful foliage and a good mix of shrubs and herbaceous planting:

2) Most of us seem to try to do a full planting plan for each garden (as opposed to visiting the nursery and just trying to pick out plants by eye). I use a combination of Sketchup and Photoshop to create the planting plan - not only does it provide a guide for me to lay out and plant up the garden, but it makes it easy to change the final plan should I tweek and move plants around a little when I am actually on site. In Sketchup I have a master file that contains plant circles of all the sizes I will need, and can drag them into the Sketchup model of the garden design outline I'm working on (more on that process in another later blog methinks). So I can ultimately create this:

3) Sourcing the plants - many of us had learnt the hard way about creating a plan with all the plants in that we fancy using and then realising we'd have to go to 3, 4 or maybe even more nurseries to get hold of them which really isn't a good use of our time as designers we reckoned. In the central belt of Scotland we've got a decent choice of places to choose from, with some very helpful nursery owners. One discussion was around the topic of whether there is ever truly a 'One Stop Shop' nursery where you can get all your trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants from. A few folks used McLarens on the far side of Glasgow, and they are happy to deliver to Edinburgh and beyond. Macplants is a great herbaceous nursery in East Lothian (http://www.macplants.co.uk/home.asp) and Binny Plants (http://www.binnyplants.co.uk/index.asp) in West Lothian has a very knowledgeable owner and a great online catalogue.
4) There was a mix of experiences when it came to planting up the garden. Around two thirds of us planted the gardens ourselves and if a contractor was going to be planting it, we would usually lay out the plants for them. Most of us agreed that we looked forward to this part of the process and if we were able to plant up with either the client or another helper that it made it even more enjoyable.
5) Whilst discussing how we charged for planting there seemed to be agreement that most of us gave the client a fee for doing the planting design at the start of the planting process and an estimate on the cost of planting up. We agreed it often took longer to plant than we might initially envisage so would charge the client hourly for this part of the job, whilst giving them a maximum amount of hours we might take.
The planting for the design above was done early last summer, so need to go back and photograph it this summer. But for another project I was working on last spring looked like this after only a month or two:

Somewhere over a rainbow...

2010-02-20T00:16:00.002Z

Ian sent me a link today to a web based application from Adobe called Kuler - it's for generating colour schemes (from either a single base starting colour or even an uploaded photograph). People also post colour themes that they've come up with on their which you can save on your list of favourites. I was a bit confused at first about what it was for, but have been playing with it for a couple of hours (yes I do know it's sad on a Friday night) to try to figure it out. As an avid Photoshop user I was interested to see that it allows you to add the saved themes as swatches in there and also in Illustrator and Flash, so loads of uses of it from there. Not exactly sure what I can use it for yet, but it sure was fun looking at everyone else's samples and playing with some of my own. I searched for Scandinavian themed ones and got the first of these.

I then uploaded a couple of photos with plants and flowers in, the software is clever enough to choose the dominant colours in the image and you can choose or alter these as you see fit. The planting combo I posted on the 8th of February with Japanese Bloodgrass and other dark coloured plants turned out like this:

And the Bunny Tail grasses and Catanache like this:

Couple of other nice ones:

Now all I have to do is figure out what to do with all the piles of combinations I've created. If you too want to waste hours and hours of your time then the Kuler website can be found at:

http://kuler.adobe.com/#

New build starts today.

2010-02-18T17:19:00.002Z

Well, here we are, second build of the year. First one went swimmingly well, and finished a few days early so we were able to get started today rather than next week. It was a client who I did a design for late last summer. After an extension to their house the builder added a stone terrace & steps which ran along the length of the house. The rest of the garden was lawn. Although the terrace was in a good position, it was very dominant. So the brief was to retain as much of this terrace to allow seating for 6 people and a place to dry clothes, but to add a place to enjoy the evening sun (in the far corner), raised planters, some moving water, keep some lawn and link the various elements together too.

So I cut into the patio at several points - a combination of planting in the ground at the lower (grass) level and raised rendered block planters make the shape a bit more interesting and helps integrate it with the rest of the garden. There is a shallow step off it onto the lawn. A west facing hardwood deck with block and wooden topped seating will be built in the corner. It's backed by a higher block planter which acts as a backrest and provides yet more height interest. A steel water blade and pool will be sited near this seating area, and a large stainless steel water ball reflects light in the opposite, more shady corner. A curvy organic shaped lawn finishes it all off.

All marked out today, foundations start getting dug tomorrow.

Turquoise is colour of the year 2010...?

2010-02-15T01:13:00.000Z

From a Press Release I read the other day:

Global colour authority Pantone has this week named its 15-5519 Turquoise as Color of the Year for 2010. Pantone says that turquoise is a colour that most people respond to positively, having appeal for both men and women, and which translates easily to interiors and fashion.

With both warm and cool undertones, it pairs well with any other colour in the spectrum, adding a splash of excitement to neutrals and browns, complementing reds and pinks, creating a classic maritime look with deep blues and livening up other greens, and is especially trend-setting with yellow-greens.

"In many cultures, turquoise occupies a very special position in the world of colour," according to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute. "It is believed to be a protective talisman, a colour of deep compassion and healing, and a colour of faith and truth, inspired by water and sky. Through years of colour word-association studies, we also find that turquoise represents an escape to many - taking them to a tropical paradise that is pleasant and inviting, even if only a fantasy."

Wonder how it'll impact the world of garden design - not many turquoise plants out there. Or are there? Good colour for accessories in the garden this year though...

Gardens of Vladimir Sitta

2010-02-14T22:51:00.001Z

I was lucky enough to get a lovely gift from him indoors today, which was a book about Vladimir Sitta's work - a Czech born designer/architect who has been working in Australia for years (since the 1980s I think). He came to my attention a year or two back, and I was lucky enough to see him present at the Society of Garden Designers Conference a few years ago. His body of work is inspiring, his use of materials and the way he plants is right up my street. One day I'd like to get a chance to work on projects as amazing and challenging at these.

It's full of beautiful photos of his completed projects and his designs & drawings (or doodles as he calls them). It's interesting to see his finished designs, black and white and in amazing detail. One of my favourite elements he uses are the curvy decks that double up as sun loungers, and his repeated use of stripped black bamboo is

inspirational.

I'd highly recommend and encourage people to buy it!

Sleek outdoor pot plants.

2010-02-13T00:27:00.001Z

In the process of looking for some contemporary pots for a garden I'm working at the moment. Remembered an assessment we had to do at college to specify the planting and pots for an internal space (a climbing and activity centre near Edinburgh) and these Lechuza pots came into my mind, as they can be used indoors and out.

Client is looking for both tall and shorter ones in same design, so these fit the bill (height ranges from 18 - 95cm). I love the white ones (of course!), but the brown/black high gloss ones are fab too.

Check out:

http://www.plantpots.co.uk/pp/default/mt/e/kw/cubico or http://www.designerplanters.co.uk/lechuza_cubico.htm

2010-02-11T18:05:00.003Z

Oooh, nice outdoor fabric for cushions and the like:

Can be found at: http://www.osborneandlittle.com/osborne-&-little/zancudo-outdoor-fabrics/outdoor-fabrics

Let's start at the very beginning....

2010-02-11T15:17:00.002Z

This was one of the first proper commissions I got when I left college. The client was brilliant, willing to experiment and wanted to go for something contemporary and low maintenance. There are 3 'rooms' - two stone terraces (one for breakfasting, the other for sun bathing) and a dining deck for entertaining. These are seperated by a variety of plants (in raised rendered planters as well in the ground). Planting is structural - box balls, phormium, palms and the like. There is a limited colour palette of purple & red via foliage and flowers. We've also included lighting (inset into deck and along paths/steps), making it a garden that can be used all day & night.

It was a hugely enjoyable project to work on, I learned loads and on top of working with some great people, the experience was topped by getting chosen for one of the gardens in the Garden Design Journal Review of the Year 2008 - the only one in the whole of the country north of Sheffield!

Favourite Plant Combinations..

2010-02-08T10:13:00.006Z

Some of us had a get together where we chatted about our favourite plant combinations. I stupidly brought a memory stick with my images on, but no laptop to show them on, so thought I'd post a couple up here. The first contains Astrantia 'Ruby Wedding', Penstemon 'Huskers Red', Imperata 'Red Baron', Lobelia cardinalis 'Queen Victoria', Phormium tenax 'Bronze Baby' and Libertia grandiflora.

The second is Orlaya grandiflora, Catanache caerulea (Cupid's dart) and Lagurus ovatus (Bunny tail grass).

Tracking my time!

2010-02-07T23:57:00.000Z

Read about this on another person's blog - a piece of software to allow you to track time on a project (against time you projected to carry out task) and create reports. Something I ought to use a lot more of (replacing scribbled entries in my diary!).

http://www.tickspot.com/index.html

Primary School Eco Garden Project.

2010-02-05T10:45:00.009Z

Thought I'd write a little about this project that I got involved with a couple of years ago when I first started as a designer. It's a primary school in the central belt of Scotland, who had a 2 acre piece of land beside their school that laid mainly unused (for occasional sports day). Coupled with that was their membership of the Eco Schools project (http://www.ecoschoolsscotland.org/) where they wanted to adopt the healthy eating, recycling, wildlife awareness and other categories into their everyday schooling.

The children at the school had a competition to draw what elements they'd like in the garden, and these along with great input from the teachers involved gave me a design brief containing the following:
- education (an outdoor classroom, with a covered roof and seating for about 25)
- growing (raised beds for vegetable/herbs, container gardening, bulbs, orchard)
- recycling (composting bins, greenhouse built from plastic bottles, water collection)
- wildlife and biodiversity (wildlife habitats, bird feeders & houses, nectar rich planting, organic gardening, large wild-flower meadow)
- healthy eating (growing produce that children could eat, picnic tables, orchard to eat from)
- play (space for sports day, willow maze, treasure hunts, growing the tallest sunflower)

My Tiny Plot website.

2010-02-05T09:59:00.001Z

Like what this lady writes about...http://www.mytinyplot.co.uk/

How to measure trees

2010-02-03T17:58:00.003Z

Well you live and learn...http://www.treeregister.org/measuringtrees.shtml

2010-01-29T10:24:00.002Z

Beautiful fencing and trellis work - bit pricey but I just love the Contemporary stuff especially.

http://www.gardentrellis.co.uk/index.html

2010-01-28T17:44:00.002Z

We're looking to get a studio for Ian to paint in and a home office for me properly sorted out here. We're probably going to build an extension, but one of these is very tempting...

http://www.officepod.co.uk/

SAC Students Chelsea Show Garden

2010-01-28T17:38:00.002Z

Here's the plan view of the 21st Century Croft Chelsea Show Garden that the SAC students who I was teaching last spring are building for this May. With very minimal help from me and a couple of other lecturers, they've got this far pretty much by themselves and are doing a great job.

Their blog can be found at: http://c21croftsac.blogspot.com/ , follow their progress and news there.

Landscape+Urbanism: April 2008

2010-01-25T12:39:00.001Z

Something worth looking at...

Landscape+Urbanism: April 2008

2010-01-08T01:32:00.000Z

Well, here we are, almost 2 years since I posted my first update to this blog. Never quite got round to the second one as quickly as I hoped (understatement!), things got very hectic very quickly here and I never seemed to have the time to add to it.

Now that I'm using Facebook and Twitter regularly, and am in the process of re-designing my website, I thought the blog would be a good way of linking them all together. Even made it one of my New Years Resolutions to keep it up-to-date, which if it's like any of my other resolutions, it isn't a good sign!

Anyway, got lots of news and many things have happened since I started up my business, so will add a few posts in the next week or two to get us all up to speed.

Hoping to add drawings, photos and other pearls of wisdom as I forge ahead with this.

We're snowed in here (for the third week running!), so ought to have no excuses to get to it...

My first blog...

2007-11-10T23:10:00.000Z

This is my first ever blog - have read loads of other peoples, never really thought of posting up my own until now.

Four years ago I decided to give up working in I.T. and went off to study hortifculture and landscaping. After working on building gardens for a couple of years, I was completely hooked and decided to stretch myself and went on to study garden design in the last 2 years.

So, I've finished studying now and have started up McQue Gardens. I'm going to use this blog to post up some of the stuff I've been working on and share my experiences as the owner of a new business and as a garden designer.

Enjoy.

PS This is my first ever design done at college....