Landscape Juice

Gardeners' World revamp a recipe for disaster?

What's the gardening equivalent of a soggy bottom? Gardener's wilt, perhaps? As the garden world gets ready for another Gardeners' World makeover, I'm wondering if it's really possible to replicate a cooking format on a gardening show? The biggest problem I can see is that gardening cannot be rushed.....and telly audiences like a bit of action and excitement. Yes, of course, one can do a garden makeover in a weekend and that makes for interesting telly. It's thrilling to see how a landscape can be so dramatically changed in such a short space of time. But watching grass grow can... Read more →

300,000 commemorative poppies to be unveiled at RHS Chelsea Flower Show

Landscape designer Phillip Johnson has teamed up with the creators of the 5000 Poppies Project to showcase a vast tribute of almost 300,000 handcrafted poppies at 2016 RHS Chelsea Flower Show from 24-28 May 2016. The display will honour all servicemen and women who have fought across all wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations over the last 100 years. Phillip Johnson’s design for Chelsea will incorporate a selection of poppies from 50,000 contributors from across the globe. The design features a simple central geometric installation, complemented by more than 25,000 stemmed poppies extending into the lawns of the Chelsea Hospital. Overall... Read more →

Burntwood School wins RIBA Stirling Prize

Burntwood School, a large comprehensive girls’ school in Wandsworth, London by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris (AHMM) has won the coveted RIBA Stirling Prize 2015 for the UK’s best new building. Now in its 20th year, the RIBA Stirling Prize, sponsored by Almacantar, is the UK’s most prestigious architecture prize. AHMM’s transformation of Burntwood School reimagines a 1950’s modernist secondary school campus for 2000 girls and 200 staff. The architects created six new faculty buildings and two large cultural buildings linking original buildings by renowned 1950s/1960s architect Sir Leslie Martin. Every building is full of light and air with double height... Read more →

Garden Bridge team begins tree selection process

This week the Garden Bridge planting team visited nurseries in the UK and northern Europe to select some of the plants and trees that will feature on the Bridge, set to open in 2018. The Bridge will link the tree lined South Bank to the Victoria Embankment Gardens and Temple Gardens on the North Bank providing an ecological corridor which connects green spaces on either sides of the river. The garden will provide an ever-changing seasonal landscape incorporating a 2500m2 planting area for wildlife-friendly tree and plant species fostering biodiversity in the heart of the capital. The Garden Bridge’s landscape... Read more →

Thames Central Open Spaces mount legal challenge to Garden Bridge

Thames Central Open Spaces TCOS is "fighting the wasteful and unnecessary £175m Garden Bridge construction across the River Thames in central London: one of the busiest and richest part of the city if not the UK. It's part funded by the taxpayer and will be privately owned and managed with no public right of way." TCSO has set up a fund raiser to mount a legal challenge in order to stop the construction of the Garden Bridge. They have so far raised £17,210.23 (75%) of the proposed £24,000 target. Read more →

Secret Garden colouring-in book sells 3m copies in China

Three million copies of Johanna Basford’s adult colouring book Secret Garden have been sold in China in less than three months, its publisher has announced, dubbing Beijing the “adult colouring-in capital of the world”. As the Beijing international book fair takes place this week, Laurence King Publishing said that Secret Garden had sold 6.8m copies around the world, with 3m of these sales in China, where it was published on 1 June. The title has also been a major hit in Brazil, where it has sold just over 1.1m copies, said Laurence King, with 650,421 copies sold in the US,... Read more →

Garden designer transforms dreary terrace area

Garden designer Claire Pollard sought help from her landscaping peers with a difficult landscaping project. The task involved digging down so that more of the garden is at same basement level as the rear of the house. Claire reported: "As you can see in the image the stone wall is fully built to the basement level but I am thinking that this probably isn't the case for the remaining length of the wall down the garden? The neighbouring houses look similar (they have basement levels) so I am assuming the ground level is the same on their side unless they've... Read more →

Landscapers and designers relying too heavily on their comfort zone

Is it me or are 90% of gardens I see going through on Twitter, Facebook or business blogs all following the same theme? Square block painted rendered walls with stone coping wrapped around a dull outdoor seating area with a sofa and chairs, with obligatory brightly coloured cushions, that wouldn't look out of place in a penthouse docklands flat. Oh, I nearly forgot....there's almost always an outdoor gas fire embedded into one of the rendered walls. Then there's the planting afterthought. 'I know, let's throw in a few token Verbena bonariensis and a under plant the birch tree with Alliums'.... Read more →

Will the Garden Bridge ever be built?

Do you remember how the Millennium Dome became a political football? Many critics thought that the Labour government led project was a white elephant that was doomed to fail. In indeed, the Conservatives used every opportunity to discredit the Millennium Dome project and for a time, it looked as though the critics were going to be proven right. Sharply in focus when the clocks chimed midnight on 31st December 1999, the Dome (as many called it) slowly, but surely, slipped from the consciousness of its most vociferous critics. Later renamed the O2 (Arena), the Dome has now enjoyed huge commercial... Read more →

3D miNiATURE garden design show to launch

I love this concept and I can really see 3D technology taking off for garden and landscape design. Garden designers Andrew Fisher Tomlin and Tom Harfleet, along with Swedish designer Kajsa Bjorne, have launched miNiATURE, the first garden show that will be entirely 3D printed. Tom Harfleet said “The concept behind miNiATURE is to create a platform where leading garden designers and landscape architects truly have the ability to create unique and ambitious gardens, even if they are in miniature. Currently show gardens provide a platform to engage people with new design but often these can end up as safe... Read more →