When I began my career in the garden design world back in the 1970`s, there weren`t many of us around. My most notable influence was John Brookes MBE who was a highly influential garden and landscape designer who is credited with having “made the Modern garden”. A Modernist, he started designing in the late 1950s working with Dame Sylvia Crowe, Brenda Colvin, Geoffrey Jellicoe and other notable architects and landscape architects in London. This was the dawn of garden and landscape design for the middle classes in Britain.
His gardens being `modern` were recognisably modular – and by that I mean angular and geometric, which at the time were welcomed as fresh and interesting, where the structure of the paving and other structures dominated the planting introduced. Clever, but now very stylised.
I have to admit that this is a format that I followed when I moved to London in the early 80`s. If you understood it, it was actually very easy to follow successfully.
However, as with any conspicuous style, it didn`t prevail and I found that with the burgeoning media covering gardening and garden design from Gardener`s World, Titchmash to the ever realistic Monty Don. My clients were now able to understand their plot in a more sophisticated way. Design became so much more organic, flowing and most importantly allowed the planting to feature on a level with the hard landscaping. ……and so it continues thankfully.
When I was invited to do couple of lectures on the subject of garden design it allowed me to contemplate what it was all about. This was a few years ago, but I concluded that it was now all about indulgence in the garden. By this I mean that current garden design schemes are now allowing us to sit, lounge and generally embed ourselves into the garden. I call these areas `Honey Pots` where multiple opportunities present themselves around the garden to cater for every mood, whether it be a time for contemplation, an evening drink with friends or just simply a rustic oak plank embedded into some planting for those times when you just want to watch the butterflies & bees do all the work.
Elementa Garden Design specialise in garden design in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire and the Cotswolds. Award winning garden designer Nick Dickinson, has been creating beautiful gardens for four decades. Nick is a much sought after plantsman and garden designer who is able to take a garden design brief, however sketchy and transform your garden into something that will really stimulate the senses.