Advice
Musings on choosing a garden designer
Garden designers need to know a lot about a lot of things. Just consider for a moment. He or she has got to have a good breadth and depth of…
Advice
Posts Categorized: Advice
Advice
Advice
Curve Appeal
Curve appeal……… this month we have transformed a back garden in Maidenhead where curves take centre stage and give a small garden added interest. The main curve which runs along…
Advice
Growing Vegetables – Design Considerations
This is the second of a series of design blogs aimed at encouraging people to make space to grow vegetables (see July’s introductory post here). This time a few pointers…
Advice
Making room for vegetables
I have been asked on numerous occasions over the years to give some tips and advice about growing vegetables and how to design a vegetable garden. Up until now I…
Advice
Garden Designer: Artist or Problem Solver?
When I meet people for the first time and tell them I am a garden designer, their first response is often something like: how lovely to spend your time creating…
Advice
How To Cope With Shallow Soils Over Chalk
When we refer to chalky soil, we mean soil which has a layer of chalk below it. Chalky soils tend to be: flinty (which makes them difficult to dig) very…
Advice
How to Cope with Wide Shallow Gardens
Wide shallow gardens lack depth relative to their width and can appear to lack a sense of space and distance. This problem can be exacerbated in small back gardens with…
Advice
Is It Safe To Plant In The Winter Months?
Some clients get very concerned if we inform them that we are planning to undertake some of the planting in their gardens during the winter months. And clients choosing to…
Advice
An introduction to garden drainage… from an expert
Here at ALDA Landscapes, garden drainage is dear to our hearts, particularly after a succession of years with spells of prolonged wet weather. How to deal with surface water is a…
Advice
How To Cope With Wet Soils / Gardens
If you constantly find yourself battling a soggy, wet garden, it’s probably caused either by the existence of a high water table or by compacted soil leading to poor drainage….
Advice
Don’t always believe the builder!
Alison has finally persuaded me to venture into the blog-o-sphere and publish my first blog post. Let’s just say this is seriously outside my comfort zone! I’m John Hill, and…
Advice
How to cope with… a sloping garden
Is your garden a bit, umm… mountainous? Ok, not mountainous, but does it have a slope to it? Here are some pictures to whet your appetite: The Challenge Sloping gardens. …
Advice
How to cope with… an open plan front garden – a case study
Front gardens are often purely functional. Pull up into the driveway, park the car, put the bins out, … you get the idea. But sometimes, there’s an opportunity for something…
Advice
How To Attract Insects To Your Garden
This blog was almost called “How To Attract Beneficial Insects To Your Garden”, but when we started to think about what a “beneficial” insect actually is, it became clear that…
Advice
Using gabions for retaining walls – a case study
Many of the gardens we design involve gradients to a lesser or greater degree. If the gradient is relatively steep, or if a completely level lawn is required, some sort…