greencube garden and landscape design, UK

A well deserved rest after a very busy ' greencube ' summer. I took off to Northern Spain for an inspiring  cultural visit to Bilbao followed by a wonderful peaceful rest in a small, spanish village in Galicia (north west spain), up in the hills, overlooking the Atlantic. Known as Green spain. We rented a little rustic cottage and cooked up some spanish cuisine (thanks To Rick Stein's SPAIN), drank spanish wine and enjoyed the sunshine, learning enough spanish to get by and fell in love with a local delicacy of  'pimiento de padron' (olive oil fried baby green peppers) and Viera al horno (baked scallops). These photos were taken on my iphone. Guggenheim at Dusk Frank Geary's - Guggenheim With Anish Kapoor's - sculpture 'Tall tree and the eye' Spider sculpture 'Maman' by Louise Bourgeois, which I have also seen at Tate Modern London An exhibition of David Hockney's 'A Bigger Pict...

GREEN WALLS This was before the popularity swept across the Uk and Europe led by Patrick Blanc and his vertical planting and now of course there are so many companies providing vertical wall installations. But back in 2006 they were not on the market and so  I had the vertical steel trays made by a local forge to my specification, I filled them with compost mixed with vermiculite and I planted the succulents 8 weeks before the Chelsea Flower Show. They rooted in and were able to be installed into our gold medal winning garden.  They were my ' living art panels' made up with a mixture of Sempervivums of different varieties supplied by Kernock Plants, it took me 3 days to plant up and were laid horizontally for 7 weeks until I was happy they had rooted in.  They required very little watering as sempervivums can live on a teaspoon of water. Its great to see the image and comment in the book. Here's a few photos of the living art panels ...

Greencube's workload: Normally August is quiet and the pace of new enquiries slow down and its a great time to catch up and get on top of things. But we are still receiving new garden design enquiries and being inundated with new work. I'm definitely not grumbling but enjoying the pace and its great having Harriet on board to help out which has improved turnaround times for our clients. We are working on some very interesting projects currently in Essex and Kent, including a garden with a 10 metre climb from front to back and a lovely contemporary garden in Chelsfield. What's looking good in greencube's garden? Well a riot of Crocosmia and Echinacea, now my husband would say that the composition doesn't work in this photograph but I love it. It reminds me of a dress in my wardrobe that I'm not brave enough to wear. A riot of colour!!! Cynara looks great a huge flower has appeared and more on the way, this is a big plant and requires a big space. ...

I spent last Friday morning with my client in Folkestone, we worked together: weeding, trimming, dead heading, feeding and I took some photos once we finished. Our clients have totally embraced their garden that we designed and planted last year and they tend to it regularly to ensure it looks great, we had a great time working through and sat back and enjoyed the views at the end! It's so important to regularly maintain your garden to gain maximum benefit and as you can see, a year on, this garden is maturing nicely. The herbaceous mix of Helennium's, Coropsis, Anemone, Diascia, Persicaria, Erigeron and Micanthus grass look stunning! A new variety of Hydrangea 'Pink Annabelle' and some rich coloured Sambucus nigra 'Black Beauty'. The only poor display was the Malus, totally wiped out by the wind and cold rain, blowing off all the flowers in the spring and so this year has no fruits, what a shame.. but the Nandina hedge looks great. The view from the main ...

We are now looking after our Tunbridge Wells Garden that we designed and planted last year. Harriet is visiting weekly to keep it looking great. The Hydrangea Annabelle and Penstemon's with Rosa 'American Pillar' scrambling up the posts look amazing. and one of my favourite little Geranium's -  'Patricia' is doing its job well.

We re-visited a garden designed by us  greencube today. Built last year and planted by us in the Spring of 2011. We have now been asked back to design the front garden. We took an opportunity to have a look at the plants to see how well they have established. We love the meadow and orchard, what a great success, a real dreamy space, buzzing with insect and butterfly activity. Trying to capture the wonder of a meadow is difficult, here I have photographed the mown path with orchard and meadow on one side and perennial and ornamental grass bank on the other, the white fizz in the backround is Leucanthemum 'Angel' and yellow flower in the foreground is Anthemis 'Sauce Hollandaise' which has now past its best but I think still looks great! Here a mixed perennial border with Stipa tenuissima and Miscanthus sinensis 'Adiago'  The Leucanthemum 'Angel' up close.