greencube garden and landscape design, UK

It's always a huge compliment when I see our gardens published in magazines, sharing our hard work, inspiration and ideas with the world. We have seen my Hampton Court, Gold medal winning Garden of 2010 published in a magazine in the Netherlands this month. This is the forth time I've seen my garden featured in a dutch magazine or book. They kindly sent me a copy. The magazine is called Groei & Bloei, which translates to 'Growth and Bloom' and they featured a 4 page article about the garden. Here are the scans of the magazine. dutch magazine website:  groei.nl and our website media page:  http://greencubelandscapes.co.uk/media/media.html I've also been contacted by Hadlow College this week who sponsored the Hampton Court Garden as they are about to re-build it at Hadlow, Broadview Gardens and needed some information. I'll have to take a sneaky peak once they start progressing, be great to see it built again. Our lovely Ide Hill, Sevenoak...

There's always something looking good in my garden and I'm really enjoying the witch hazel at the moment. The late afternoon sunshine lit up the Hamamelis beautifully this afternoon... I'm very happy with this shrub as I moved it two years ago and last year I had very little flower, I think it was protesting, but this year its looking great. The flowers have a delicate scent of spice and citrus. This deciduous shrub sits within a partial shaded area near a holly hedge only having early morning and late afternoon sunshine, I feed it once a year with a thick layer of well rotted compost and it is underplanted with Hellebores, Brunnera and Hakonechloa, my eclectic mix... I'm using my new camera a Canon 50D with 24 - 85mm lens, I adjusted the aperture real small and took the photo on Macro with manual focus, its real trial and error but I'm enjoying playing with it.

Every year in late February early March cut your perennial grasses to the ground in readiness for the wonderful graceful new growth. Here I am cutting the Miscanthus down in my own garden, I have left them all winter adding structure to the border but now its time to chop them down. Other grasses in my own garden getting a chop are the Pennisetums, Calamagrostis, Hakonechloa macra. Whats amazing is by early summer the Miscanthus and Calamagrostis have grown back to 1.8 - 2.0 metres tall, looking all lush and green. This blog will be distributed to many of our clients who all ask how to look after their Ornamental grasses.

I'm currently reading 'Making Wildflower Meadows' by Pam Lewis who owns a wonderful plot in Dorset called Sticky Wicket, I haven't been but have been inspired by some wonderful images of her garden and meadow.  http://www.stickywicketgarden.com/ I share many of Pam's views on the importance of preserving our wonderful flora and fauna and with disappearing hedgerows, over ploughed fields, over developed land, the over use of nitrogen high chemical fertilisers to create high yields and EU banishing 'set-a-side' farming policy its not a surprise that our wildflower meadows are few and far. What's surprising is that herbal content in meadow grass is an important element in the well being of grazing animals, which have been eradicated by the over ploughing and polluting with herbicides and therefore affecting the chain further. Now that's dumb.... There is nothing more delightful than a meadow full of butterflies, bees and hover flies, crimson poppi...

A busy week in the office, with numerous tasks including going out to tender on a garden in West Wickham, measuring up a garden that requires approval from the council in Sevenoaks and designing a large garden with a difficult terrain in Grassy Lane, Sevenoaks. and so I thought I would get out and enjoy the sunshine yesterday with gorgeous blue skies but bitterly easterly wind I wrapped up warm and took my camera into the garden. The frozen daisies look great, I always believe in leaving some of the perennials to overwinter to create wonderful skeletal structures in the border, this Aster is a great example The frozen ivy that's growing on the side of garage where the wren nests every year caught my eye. The icicles were catching the low, soft, winter light. The Calamagrostis x acutiflora ' Karl Foerster' is still adding winter structure in the large border adjacent to the topiary box cubes Buxus sempervirens. I purchased the Calamagrostis from Beth C...

Another favourite for January is Cyclamen coum, we have planted 400 of these to colonise under some large deciduous oak trees, giving winter colour en masse in our Tunbridge Wells garden, follow link: http://greencubelandscapes.co.uk/portfolio/portfoliotunbridgewells.html If you are going to have this plant in your garden you must plant lots, creating a dramatic effect, this photo was taken at RHS Wisley. You can normally buy them in 9cm pots and so relatively inexpensive.

Plant of the week One of my favourite plants for dry shade is the robust, glossy and winter flowering Sarcococca confusa an amazing plant that tolerates a very dry position where little else would survive. An evergreen glossy plant that can be clipped into an informal hedge. If I stand under my pine tree in my garden adjacent to my neighbours conifer hedge (i.e incredibly dry, shady and sandy soil) I can smell sweet vanilla scent from the Sarcococca flowers. The flowers are followed by a black berry. When our clients say "You'll never find a plant to grow under there, it's far too dry" we know we can !