Landscape and garden expert

What makes a great garden - my guest blog on Successful Garden Design

I am extremely flattered but very pleased to add my thoughts to a new discussion started by Rachel Mathews on the subject 'What makes a great garden'.

An extremely subjective topic with no clear pathway - what are your thoughts....pop over and make your case.

Oxford College of Garden Design class of 2009 Excel

3 Students are Awarded Prestigious Accolades from the Royal Horticultural Society and the Society of Garden Designers.

Melissa Jolly from Henley-on-Thames is one of the winners of the National Savings & Investments Growing Gardens Today competition. Melissa’s garden design has been chosen to be built at BBC Gardeners’ World Live, in association with the RHS, to be held in June 2010 at NEC Birmingham.

Google Sketchup pencil designs

That Google is a clever company you know. I love the simplicity of (most of) their products and I've always loved to fiddle with Google Sketchup.

Devon Garden designer, Kerry Jackson, has just added this video to the Landscape Juice Network...check it out, it's cool.

SketchUp pencil styles from Kerry Jackson on Vimeo.

Olivia Stewart shortlisted for RHS Young Designer Award

Garden designer Olivia Stewart, is waiting rather anxiously to find out if she is the ultimate winner of the 2010 RHS Young Garden Designer of the Year competition.

Writing on Facebook, Olivia tells how she was 'astounded' to find out that she was only one of six designers short-listed to compete in the final presentation.

Presentations were held on the 14th January at the Royal Horticultural Society's HQ - Olivia says: "To say I was nervous is the massive understatement of the year ( the year only being 16 days long so far, I fell I can make such sweeping comments).

Professional Status and the Society of Garden Designers

It has been a tough twelve months for the Society of Garden Designers (SGD) with many feeling that they have lost touch with 1,600 'ordinary' designers who make up ninety percent of its membership.

I would like to welcome Stephen Rice as a guest to Landscape Juice. Stephen has recently joined the Landscape Juice Network and has wasted no time in using our open platform to enter into the debate about the SGD - here I repost an article first published by Stephen on the SGD forum back in August 2009.

As noted in Duncan Heather’s article “The Society of Garden Designers: A damp squib washed up on the shores of mediocrity”, the SGD has introduced a new category “Pre-Registered” to replace the “Correspondent” category which forms the bulk of the membership, writes Stephen Rice.

What is the future of garden design?

Director of garden design at the Oxford School of Garden Design, Duncan Heather, asks:

"Until modern housing corrects some of its current systemic deficiencies, is the future of landscape design condemned to be as disappointing as the present?"

It's rather a big question - do you have a view? - join the conversation.

Best young garden designer sought by RHS

a search for the United Kingdom's best young garden designer.

Designers and students, aged 28 and younger, are invited to enter a new national competition to win the title RHS Young Designer of the Year.

The competition aims to encourage and develop young creative talent. To take part designers need to submit a garden design for RHS Show Tatton Park by the 14th December 2009.

Arts versus commerce in the designer landscape

Can Landscape Designers get by on a raw talent for design and horticulture? Or do they need business acumen as well? - asks garden designer,Elspeth Briscoe.

Having made a brave career change from being in senior management at eBay and Skype, to becoming a landscape designer (now 18 months ago ) - I thought it would be useful to share some of experiences and most significant things I’ve learnt in a series of postings.

When I first started studying for my post grad diploma at Oxford College of Garden Design, I really thought I was entering another world of creativity and practicality; it seemed relatively alien to me coming from an office based, internet background.

Join the APL LinkedIn group

As part of its website restructuring and pledge to become more interactive, the Association of Professional Landscapers started a LinkedIn discussion forum - so far the group has fifty members discussing four topics.

The APL group is open to anyone so if you think you can add something to the debate or you want to start a discussion on the benefits of APL membership, then why not pop along.

Rammed Earth is a sustainable landscaping method

'Sustainable' is becoming a very cheap word. It is now so overused that I am finding it hard to distinguish between reality and marketing hype.

There really are too many materials, production methods, packaging and foods that are called sustainable but are clearly costly in terms of resources consumed to get them to market, that their sustainability 'label' is devalued by a lack of carbon neutrality.

I am always on the lookout for methods of landscape construction that would allow the consumption of materials without a high cost or heavy impact on the environment.