The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2012

In collaboration with Habitataid  http://www.habitataid.co.uk/ and their partner charities I will designing a garden for next year’s Chelsea Flower Show. The garden will be part of the RHS’ ‘Continuous Learning’ area within the Great Pavilion. This year’s theme is ‘Urban Greening’, a key issue for the RHS and all of us who are concerned by the continued loss of urban green space and the reduction in wildlife habitat and biodiversity that these areas represent.

The idea of the ‘gardens’ and displays in the continuous learning area is to put across a message relating to the Urban Greening theme in an educational,  informative and if possible an interactive way. This adds another set of interesting challenges to the design of a small garden for Chelsea Flower Show!

Habitataid and I are keen to put across the message that designing habitat rich gardens, which are good for wildlife and general biodiversity do not need to be ‘Wild’ or even informal.

We hope to design a garden that has habitat and biodiversity built into the structure of it but at the same time can represent a fragment of a more sculptural, urban garden or communal space.

We also hope to look at some of the other current urban issues which are tied up with green space such as storm water- from non porous paving, the extensive use of decking and the increasing use of gardens for off road parking.

Phil Brown Garden and Landscape Designer – Somerset

 New Acer

I was kindly given a beautiful, multi-stemmed Acer in a pot a few weeks ago which is some 4 meters tall. It needed a permanent home and moving from the current garden in Glastonbury while still manageable. It had been collected as a seedling from a wood during a visit to Japan and came back to Somerset some 15 years ago.  It is really healthy and yet it was in a tiny pot really for its size. It is amazing how much tree can be supported by such a small root system in a pot!

Given its history, I was slightly nervous becoming the lucky new owner. On planting it I gave it the full treatment complete with mycorrhizal root powder and I have been watering it and misting it every night in dry periods of weather. I have planted it on the edge of a new path some distance from the gardens boundary - it adds a lovely sense of depth now to this corner of the garden.

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

Most Beneficial Bee Plants......

A popular issue at the moment with anyone interested in designing gardens and gardening for wildlife –  Another version of the top 10 most beneficial Bee plants for inclusion within a garden design for consideration?:

1.       1 Agastache

2.       2 Ajuga, (Bugle)

3.       3 Cirsium rivulare 'Atropurpureum'

4.       4 Echium

5.       5 Echinops, (Globe thistle)

6.       6 Erysimum 'Bowles's Mauve', (Perennial wallflower)

7.       7 Monarda, (Beebalm)

8.       8 Sedum sp.

9.       9 Tanacetum coccineum, Pyrethrum

10.   10 Verbena bonariensis

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

Sustainable Garden Design 3

The fall on the seating area is about 450mm and I didn’t want to waste topsoil from the seating area itself by covering it over with sub base material and gravel. The topsoil in the garden is quite thin here but I have still taken off at least 200mm across the area and this has produced quite a pile of soil.

To be as sustainable as possible I didn’t want to have the topsoil removed from site and needed to find a use for it within the garden. I find this sort of knock on effect one of the most interesting parts of garden design and the problem solving process.

To keep and use the topsoil within the garden I decided to create two low mounds on area of lawn which vary in width and shape and leave a shallow ‘valley’ between them. I will then create a small stream that will run through this alongside a narrow path that comes from the new seating area.

Using the spare top soil has meant that I have been able to increase the poor depth of topsoil within part of the garden which now widens the plant choice and at the same time the valley with its stream and path will be a nice addition to the design of the garden.

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

Sustainable Garden Design 2

As the new walls at home are quite low I have also decided to include some pockets of soil within the construction – filling the gaps between the heart stone in places. It shouldn’t in this way affect the strength of the wall but I hope it will encourage opportunistic plants to get a foothold earlier than they otherwise would.

Rather than using a stone coping on the wall I also want to use a turf top. This will prove to be a poor growing environment but should be capable of supporting wildflowers and ferns.

 I have a number of options for this turf coping that I might experiment with in my own garden

1. I can either place topsoil in the top of the wall -bringing it to a rounded cross section and then seed this with a wild flower seed mixture.

2. I can place some topsoil within the centre of the wall and cap this with some meadow turf. This will help to secure the top quickly and then I could introduce wildflower plugs and seed to this.

3. A company that grows plant mats for green roofs has just started to produce a wildflower turf for the same purpose and I think this is the most tempting option to trial at home.

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

Sustainable Garden Design 1

Sustainable garden design is a popular concept at the moment within the garden and landscape design industry although it sometimes doesn’t seem to mean very much. When it comes to doing your own garden, if the environment and sustainability means anything then these really are the starting point of the design process for any new garden projects - influencing both the choice of materials and approach.

The materials for the design need to be as locally sourced as possible, within this part of Somerset and to have required the minimal energy in their production as possible.

I wanted to create a new seating area in the garden on a sloping area. The ultimate solution would have been to level the area off using cut and fill and to use no retaining structures or materials at all. Unfortunately the space limitations meant the need for a compromise and I have chosen to construct a series of dry-stone walls, using stone available from my local, small quarry near Castle Cary. I think the use of the stone is easilly offset by the additional habitat created

I love the fact that a dry stone wall allows you to create a retaining structure without the use of any other cement or aggregate and at the same time the wall will become a habitat to any number of wildlife species. I have designed gardens for clients who now enjoy seeing wrens using the walls for nesting, see weasels running in and out of it (probably hunting for Wrens!) whilst it is providing homes for the gardens newts and toads and slow-worms.

 Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

 New Deadheading Snips

Another thing that I found in a National Trust shop recently was  a tiny pair of deadheading snips, called ‘Deadheads’ – Secateurs seem a bit coarse for cutting through herbs and for small jobs like deadheading so these are a welcome addition to the garden tool kit. They are tiny but are very sharp and seem to be really good quality

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

New Border Spade and Fork

I have followed the bits of news over recent years since the National Trust bought Tyntesfield House at Wraxall in Somerset.

Someone told me the other day how good the cake was that they had had on a recent visit and so finally this weekend I made my first visit.

I was lucky with the weather and really enjoyed the visit but having heard so much about it, it was just slightly disappointing to see it in a ‘tidied up’ state. Having said that you do still get something of the atmosphere from days gone by - from the estate landscape overlooking the Yeo Valley.

The green houses within the walled garden have a lovely feel to them and I look forward to seeing the orangery restored in the future

I understand that the little garden shop and cafe have only just opened so that was good timing. I have been looking around every garden centre in Somerset for a new border fork and spade and found a good quality, solid handle version of each in the Tyntesfield garden shop. I have put some linseed oil on the handles today and look forward to doing a bit of planting once this has soaked in.

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

Newly Planted Whips

With the very dry last month or so across Somerset, losses within new tree planting schemes are likely. I have found however over the years that if left you may find that a percentage of whips will come back from the base in response to a period of wetter weather. It is certainly worth leaving these suspect whips over the summer to give them a chance to do this, having a careful look at the base of the whip in the shelter before removing or replacing it in the next planting season.

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

Cercis Canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’

As I mentioned I have just finished reading garden designer Dan Pearson’s latest book, ‘Home Ground’.  One of the things that I was particularly interested in was the containerised Cercis ‘Forest Pansy’ that lives on the terrace. There are some lovely photos of it included within the book. For some reason it’s not a tree that I have used before in my garden design work and yet it looks as if it’s one of those plants that will be constantly changing and providing interest throughout the year in the garden.

I have now bought my own for the garden from a local Somerset nursery, a specimen of about 3.5m with an interesting bend in it and I have planted it in the pot at an odd angle to account for this. When I got it back to the garden, the first leaves were just breaking and as it has continued to leaf out it has held my interest with the sun coming through it in the morning. It only produced a handful of flowers this year but I am glad to have one in the garden and look forward to seeing it perform through this year and to more flowers as it matures.

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

1.       Weed Control

Weed control within new woodland and landscape plantings that have been completed over the last couple of years is also going to make a critical difference in recent dry spells across Somerset and the South West.

Placing a mulch mat or spraying off a meter diameter area at the base of each tree makes a huge difference to both the survival rate of plants but on the growth and health of the plants going forward. Trees that have been without the competition from grass etc are at least twice if not three times taller than those that have been left within a blanket of grass.

As a garden and landscape designer I really don’t like to promote the use of chemical herbicides and avoid it as far as possible. But I consider the use of glyphosate if used carefully around the base of young trees to be one of those occasions. Not only because of the difference it makes to the establishment of the trees but because you also find other farmland annuals and flowering species gradually taking advantage of the openings created.

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

1.       Walled Garden at Mells

I had found the website for the Walled Garden at Mells a few weeks ago and decided to go and have a look with the extra time afforded by the long bank holiday weekend - hoping to find an interesting plant as a new addition to my own garden

There is a lovely atmosphere as you go through the gate into the garden with a collection of tables for tea and the plant sales benches around the outside and other old pots etc that are for sale.

We arrived at about 11.00 just as a Lemon Drizzle cake had been bought out of the oven and this has to be the best cake from any of the places on our normal round of garden and nursery tea shops in   Somerset to date

The garden is still be restored but there are some lovely areas of the garden and some good quality and interesting plants for sale and we really enjoyed the visit

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

 The Dry Weather

The spell of really dry and windy weather across Somerset and the Southwest seems to have come to an end for the moment. It has been lovely to go out in the garden so much over the last few weeks but as a garden and landscape designer you tend to fret about all the new bare root trees and shrubs that went in over the last winter planting season.

It is the combination of hot and windy that increases the stress on plants. watering isn’t such a problem on the garden scale but within larger tree planting schemes in landscape designs it is a worry and a practical problem.

Trees and whips that were planted before Christmas will be able to cope better as they will have got roots out into relatively warm and moist ground. These dry springs seem to be becoming a pattern and I think I will be trying to organise as much tree and whip planting for as early in each planting season as possible going forward.

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

1.       Dan Pearsons Book

I have just finished garden designer Dan Pearson’s latest book, ‘Home Ground’ which I have thoroughly enjoyed. The book follows through the design and evolution of his own garden in London. It is hard to understand why reading about the progress in someone else’s garden is so interesting but somehow you are drawn in to the whole process of the gardens design and the seasonal ‘performance’. This is the second of his books I have read the other being ‘Spirit’ which looks at inspiration for garden design which was equally enjoyable

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset

1.       Lily Rescue

Looking around a garden centre the other weekend I came across the aquatic plant trays which had some old stock in. I noticed an incredibly sad looking miniature Water Lily without a label or any recent care. I was compelled to rescue it and having negotiated a small reduction took it home. I then invested three times as much in a new basket, compost and gravel to plant it up. I had an old Copper that I used to use as the coal hopper and having washed it out this has for the time being provided the home for the Lily on the terrace

I am not sure how a miniature Lily in a Copper will cope with the winter in Somerset, I will probably move it to a more sheltered spot for the colder months. It had no label and for the moment I haven’t tried to identify it- We have had our bets on the flower colour, I just hope it’s not yellow

Phil Brown Garden & Landscape Design  - Somerset