Bullseye

I wanted a link between my planting plan and my overall design concept of intensive caring. I'd chosen salvia's for heir height, long flowering and colour contrast. I also like the idea that I'm using a plant that shamen have used for cleansing and blessings for centuries. While researching the salvias I found

The name Salvia derives from the Latin salvere ("to feel well and healthy, health, heal"), the verb related to salus (health, well-being, prosperity or salvation); referring to the herb's healing properties. Pliny the Elder was the first author known to describe a plant called "Salvia" by the Romans, likely describing the type species for the genus Salvia, Salvia officinalis. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia

Thank you Wikipedia, you beauty

Shame I saw this too late

I love this seating idea and it would work beautifully in under my cercidiphyllum but if I don't design freeze now I won't get enough work up.

What ever will I do when I don't go to bed and wake up thinking of the design.

Getting ready for final crit and beyond

Whilst washing up just now I realised that we have now had our last Friday tutorial.  We now have final crit on Tuesday week, three construction drawing lessons with Jamie and then the external examiners interview. The trouble with this time of year is that you're being pushed so hard (and rightly so) that you don't really have time to reflect on what's going on, it's as though you're stuck in fight or flight and can't assess. The prospect of not having a complete project to pin up on the 7th May is truly terrifying, I need to put it to the back of my mind (especially at 2am), keep putting one foot in front of the other and ticking off the 'to do list'.  

As a group at the moment we're rock solid and in a few short weeks that will disperse like ink in water. I'll miss my fellow students and the camaraderie that you build from going through something so intense with a group of like minded people.

I am also slightly daunted by the prospect of not being a student as well as running my company, I've been in further and higher education and setting up my business for the past six years. For now I've completed the course and got the business to a point where it runs itself much more freely. I can't quite imagine not having a 'to do list' or finishing work at 4pm and not having anything else to do that evening (except maybe chips and cider on the beach with friends), There's a big old space coming which is a sad ending to an amazing journey but also an incredibly exciting beginning x

Any fool can make a garden in spring

Christopher Lloyd famously said that any fool can make a spring garden. He is of course correct but that doesn't take away from the special place they hold, it's that message from nature saying "hold on in there girl, it's going to get warmer'.

This is a garden we've been working on for about 3 years now and is really starting to find it's feet. The setting is sublime, it's nessled in 140 acres of private woodland in Ashdown forest and I spent a lot of today listening to the cuckoo and watching the returning swallows nesting in the barns and outhouses.

Birthday come.......birthday GOOD

Nothing better than steaming compost

Pressy from a girlfriend - a student survival kit.

It's my party and .......

Tomorrow is my birthday and I'll be mainly at my desk. Big crit on Monday that I'm only slightly behind schedule with!  For me that's quite an improvement.

Two girlfriends have insisted on taking me for a quick glass of wine mid afternoon. What I want more than that is to get a relatively easy render style, that would be the bestest birthday pressy. So they're coming over and we're getting the paints out - I think I may be getting old.

Oh hello, Ive just found my park furniture

http://www.chrisnanglefurniture.co.uk

Garden Designers V Landscape Architects

My fellow student Pierre made a really interesting point yesterday. We have moved onto 1:50 and the Landscape Architects are walking round in a daze unable to leave 1:200 and the Garden Designers are flying ahead. I must confess I feel much more comfortable at 1:50 than I did at 1:2500. Onwards and upwards x

I don't profess to fully understanding it but it looks very interesting

http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/2872

Clockwise or anti clockwise

I'll now be investigating which way my wisteria climbs as to whether it's sinensis or floribunda

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/plantselector/plant?plantid=2045

Wisteria sinensis

highly scented and vigorous
smaller flowers and leaves after
twists anti clockwise

Wisteria floribunda

bigger clusters of flowers
less scented
not such vigourous plant
twists clockwise

I remember Jamie saying in the Paris trip in first year than wisteria has very strong root growth and to be warned of planting it next to house foundations. Quite often it's the wisteria that holds up old houses.

I'm planting the wisteria near retaining walls so I'm going to opt for floribunda as I'd imagine the root growth will be less vigorous if the top growth is, but I'll need to remember this for specification and construction drawings

The one for me x

The passing of the Iron Lady

Today we had lectures on green engineering and embodied carbon. It was utterly fascinating and really depressing all at the same time. It made me realise how much I take for granted and the percentage of food we waste and the energy and water consumed to produce it.

Today was also the day that Baroness Thatcher died. I realised this when I logged on Facebook in my coffee break and saw a torrent of updates such as "ding dong the witch is dead" "And where's the street party"I think it's fair to say my mates are fairly left!

Baroness Thatcher was a woman who you clearly couldn't ignore. I was born in '76 so was really young during her time as PM but remember it quite clearly. I don't know if it was my age but she always struck me as a very strong female figure and I don't remember too many of those at that time especially in politics. However I also remember Anita Roddick and annie lennox who were also strong and also changed a lot of lives ( often in better ways). The passing of anyone is sad and theres clearly a lot of vitriol with Margaret Thatcher's death. She was a politician who clearly knew exactly what she stood for, it's just a shame her legacy is so epic in so many ways.

Desire Lines

http://www.archdaily.com/353578/4-lessons-the-uk-should-take-from-denmark/

http://www.timberpress.com/books/planting/oudolf/9781604693706

It may have been a bit pricy but my goodness it helps with daunting planting plans.