Plan Your Garden
If you’re looking for ideas for your garden or are interested in reading about our garden design topics, you will find them all here. Use the drop down menu for specific design topics or simply browse or use the search box in the bar above. Enjoy!
Lawn Positioning
A lawn is usually a vital element to a garden design and often a key part of a client’s brief.… Read more.
What are the best lawn alternatives?
Traditional lawns lack biodiversity and can sometimes be tricky to maintain if your garden is shady or particularly small. In… Read more.
Using colour in your garden
Colour is an important part of any garden design. In most designs, it's the plants that provide the colour, so… Read more.
Long Flowering Perennials For Your Summer Borders
A well-designed garden provides interest from early spring through to late autumn. If clients are looking for a low maintenance… Read more.
Really Useful Little Plants
Every designer has a "go-to" list of trusty plants that they use many times and love because they will always… Read more.
The Planting Plan Process: How it works
With the weather starting to warm up and having spent a lot of time on designing and implementing planting plans… Read more.
Using Planting Texture in Design
This post looks at an often forgotten tenet of garden design - texture. If you're looking to add some texture… Read more.
Patio Design: Frequently Asked Questions
At this time of year, we have a stream of enquiries flooding in! We get lots of questions about paving… Read more.
How to encourage wildlife into your garden
However hard it is, lockdown does have it's benefits. On several of my recent visits, clients have mentioned that they've… Read more.
What to consider before your garden design consultation
January is often the time when we start to make plans for the new year. 2020 has highlighted to many… Read more.
Shrubs to add winter sparkle to the garden
The festive season has begun and as the temperature falls the garden is often seen as gloomy and dull and… Read more.
Copper Beech (Fagus sylvatica f. purpurea)
The copper beech, also known as purple beech, has to be one of my favourite trees - I'm fortunate enough… Read more.
Plant Focus: My Two Favourite Asters
If Salvia ‘Caradonna’ is one of my go to plants for early-mid Summer, then Aster amellus ‘Violet Queen’ & Aster… Read more.
Using Curves in Garden Design
Have you ever noticed how the majority of gardens are rectangular in shape? It can be rather a headache for… Read more.
Plant Focus: Ornamental Alliums
One of the most widely recognised and used perennials, the ornamental Allium is a tough, easy to grow plant with… Read more.
Keeping It Simple
After the recent completion of a beautiful front garden in Newbury, I thought I would highlight how a design -… Read more.
Plant Focus: Salvia ‘Caradonna’
This is definitely one of my “go to” plants when preparing planting plans as it is so reliable, well behaved,… Read more.
Taking a closer look at Resin
ALDA Landscapes has been an accredited resin installer since 2018, installing resin driveways, paths and surfaces across Reading, Newbury and… Read more.
Angular Design
Making the most out of the space available in a garden is a key component to a great design. Often… Read more.
Low Maintenance Front Garden Planting
We recently completed the planting for a front garden for a client in Twyford. This planting needed to be low… Read more.
Plant Focus: Rosmarinus ‘Miss Jessopp’s Upright’
A Rosemary? Yes, I am extolling the virtues of a simple, commonly available Rosemary plant. What's to like? Rosmarinus ‘Miss… Read more.
Trees for Autumn colour
Autumn, for me, is the time for trees. When you think of autumn you likely think of the fiery reds,… Read more.
Adding structure to planting borders
A very common request when discussing planting requirements with clients is for a garden with year-round interest - it normally… Read more.
Plant Focus: Syringa meyeri ‘Palibin’
Love the flower and wafting scent of Lilac, but put off by the fact that they grow too big too… Read more.
Plant Focus: Nandina domestica & its smaller relatives
Until recently, Nandina domestica was little known and rarely used by gardeners in the UK, but it is now gaining… Read more.
Porcelain paving is proving a popular choice
We have noticed a real trend over the last 2 years for using porcelain tiles in our clients’ gardens. So… Read more.
Plant Spacing – The Garden Designer’s Dilemma
Clients often ask me how I know how far apart to space plants when designing a new planting scheme. And… Read more.
Using Spring bulbs to add extra colour
Spring bulbs are the underused category of plants that can really lift your garden and add a pop of colour… Read more.