Before and After

Well we've been out on our own now for two years now and some of our gardens are starting to look established so finally we can bring you some before and afters. Here's one from just around the corner. Our Clients had done a really gorgeously stylish renovation to their house, but had run out of steam for the entrance. So after plenty of talking and inspiration from ourselves and the client, we came up with this, it's modern, suits the house, fun, practical and colourful.

Wildflowers and not so wildflowers

Its that dark damp wintery time of the year again just 5 days to the shortest day (plant your garlic next wednesday folks), and all I can think about is the lovely summery meadow that we had out the front instead of lawn last summer. We planted the whole area in a low grow wildflower mix from Kings seeds it worked a treat. 250gm packet for $43. Aside from being the cheapest and lowest maintenance way of caring for a lawn area, it was an endless supply of cute arrangements by the bed, posies for the teacher, pleasure for the neighbours and a stopover for all the butterflies and bees in the hood. So next weekend I'll be out there clearing the site and preparing the dirt for this summer. Hopefully there will be plenty of self sown seed from last year but I've also ordered the 'poppy fields of colour' hoping for more reds and pinks to add to it. Ive thrown in a couple of packets of cornflowers and statice too, so you can all expect dried flowers on your christmas prezis this year!

If random wildness is not your thing, take a note from one of my favorite designers Piet Oudolf who's plantings look wild but are beautifully arranged drifts of these type of plants.

Heres Miss 'M' in our flowers last year and a Piet Oudorf  masterpiece.

Pensthorpe Garden