greencube garden and landscape design, UK

Greencube loves a challenge! Here's what this garden looked like last year... We nearly frightened off the landscapers with our proposals...... When visiting this garden last year, the clients were refurbishing the house and required some help and inspiration to sort out the garden. The garden falls from top to bottom 5.2 metres over a very short distance of just under 30 metres. greencube have designed a practical space, adding veneers of gabions filled with local kent ragstone and green oak sleepers to hold back and mask the bad taste rendered walls, without stripping the whole garden out and making use of three practical levels down to the lower area.  We have turned the steps and created resting platforms, 2 decks for socialising and the children will have a slide to land down on the bottom level onto the astro turf playing area with the option of steps if you are not keen to slide down. We have also incorporated a planted green bank, taking inspiration from Thames Bar...

Sometimes its good to get away and look at nature close up. Sometimes I take inspiration for our garden designs from nature: the patterns, textures, colours or an abstract shape..... I borrowed my husbands macro lens to take these photos on a trip to New Jersey, looking at what was on offer on a short walk through a meadow near the coast in Cape May. The meadow offered some wonderful diverse flora and fauna and the light was good. I'm not the best at holding the camera steady but managed to get a few almost focused images. Berries, seeds, seed pods, autumn leaves, flowers and monarch butterflies. I plan to visit lots of gardens this spring and summer 2015 and practise my macro photography, I may try the monopod to help with steadying the camera. 

greencube has a new front page for 2015, embracing some of the completed gardens of 2014. see link greencubed.co.uk greencubelandscapes.co.uk

It seems I've been a little busy and pre-occupied and so over the last 2 days I have banned the Christmas festivities,  put my 'website hat' on and uploaded some of our fab gardens completed in 2014. Here's a taster: check our website which is still undergoing some other changes over the next week http://greencubed.co.uk/portfolio/portfolio.html three of these gardens are maintained by greencube - our landscape gardener Gemma. Regular garden maintenance is the key to a successful garden looking great all year. Now I'm off to celebrate the new year, Thankyou to all our hardworking landscapers who realise our designs and to our wonderful clients who keep us busy and challenge our creativity on a regular basis. Its been a wonderful 2014 and I'm very much looking forward to creating some wonderful new gardens in 2015.

Cornus are great background foil to the show off plants in summer but in winter they are centre stage and look amazing planted in bold swathes. Leaving some of the perennials over winter in the border can be just as magical as the summer colour, here Erigeron annus have been frozen in flower and add a wonderful skeletal texture to the winter border. Hamamelis x intermedia 'Barnstedt Gold' looks amazing in the winter sunshine and smell divine. Tiny Iris flowers popping up before the snowdrops - Iris reticulata 'Harmony'

Garden Under Construction in Sevenoaks Here I have applied oversized pots placed on brick platforms and large obelisks placed within simple border planting, complimented with midnight slate paving to work with the warm colours of the brick. The pots contain over 500 bulbs, I'll return in the spring to take more photos. Greencube are project monitoring this job visiting weekly. greencubed.co.uk Here 'Urb' the greencube cooper van, our reliable and resourceful team member, gets in on the photo on Christmas Eve, almost matching the obelisks in colour! Design and planning - greencube, planting greencube, hardscapes - langdale landscapes Garden hardscapes completed in Hawkinge Here's a lovely email (copy) from our clients in Hawkinge, Clayton at Quest Landscapes has just completed the hardscapes, planting to be carried out in the spring. Hi Mandy We have had Clayton landscape the garden and he did a fantastic job. We have just finishe...

It may be December but we are as busy as ever, I'll be working right upto Christmas Eve and re-vamping our website over the holidays. Here's what we are up to at the moment: Border Preparation - 'stuck record' I'm project monitoring the construction of a garden in Sevenoaks and visited yesterday, I must say very impressed with the border preparation. I sound like a 'stuck record' but plants need to establish as soon as possible with the best available nutrients, water and good soil for the best establishment, future growth and successful flowering. Seeing the guys dig out the rubbish soil, stones, roots and debris. adding good screened top soil and rotavating mushroom compost is the best preparation for plant establishment. A big thank you to those at Langdale Landscapes. Obelisks arrival I ordered these obelisks from woodengardenobelisk .co.uk , a small family run business based in Suffolk, great service. We are installing these within the two b...