Planting design is a very specialist skill. Since plants are dynamic life forms that are in constant flux, planting design requires the skillful combination of design judgement and horticultural knowledge.
A successful scheme will not only produce stunning plant combinations in the first few years of life but will also be designed to work with the perpetual evolution of a garden to continue to amaze as it matures.
UK Garden designer and plant expert Alice Bowe is renowned for her sumptuous and painterly planting schemes - which create tapestries of seasonal, ephemeral plants against a backbone of more structural hedges, shrubs and trees.
Alice's planting design approach is sensuous and simple, with blousy herbaceous borders, fragrant planting and the clean structure of topiary. Her artistic training is obvious in the painterly planting schemes she designs.
We design all our gardens for year round interest and we are particularly keen to emphasise the temporal qualities of the garden and the seasonal changes.
Our planting schemes include dramatic seasonal accents to really take your breath away – be it clouds of spring blossom underplanted with cream narcissi, sexy swathes of iris or the drama of a matrix planting of autumnal grasses.
Biodiversity in the garden is another key motivation for our planting schemes. Attracting bird, butterflies and beneficial insects to the garden does not have to mean a messy, or relaxed planting style. In fact many of our more formal gardens are the most efficient at providing wildlife habitats! See Sustainable Landscape Design and Planning for more details.
