I have been full of good intensions, to get out and see more gardens. I had listed places and dates, researched when particular places might be at their best. But like any well intentioned expedition into the British summer, the weather has made the excuses for me. The National Garden scheme is in full flow, I weekly regret those that I miss and will have to wait another year to see. There has been a lot of work on recently and little chance to escape for a few hours of personal indulgence. The summer holiday is quickly approaching and it acts like a barrier, work is being squeezed up against it and hopefully delayed and outstanding work can be cleared before we go to sunnier places. If I am honest, there is a paradox in visiting gardens; I don’t get much out of seeing other outdoor spaces. I don’t want to be influenced by how someone else has solved a problem, plant combinations are influenced by a location and don’t relocate well and I want to give my client’s a unique solution not an ensemble of other people’s work. Yet I still love the experience, the peace and calmness, the ambience and sense of escape. I won’t stop going, I will have favourites and ones that I dislike and I will talk about them here, just don’t expect too many! I play in other people’s garden all week, even at weekends sometimes. Doing the same for pleasure sometimes pushes the family to distraction.
In less than 2 weeks the designs for 2010’s Chelsea Flower Show have to be in. I am still perusing potential sponsors and at this time of the year not many seem to be interested in something that is almost a year away. Currently I have 12 designs on the drawing board…well actually they are printouts, taped to the drawing board. Choosing which one to develop further will be a task that will require some additional opinion, so I might do a bit of a straw poll amongst friends. Something I have recently bought is Adobe Acrobat 9- extended. It has an amazing feature called 3d-PDF, which allows a 3D computer file to be placed into a STD PDF file. When the file is opened the Computer model can be rotated and zoomed, but without any additional software or viewers. I have sent simple files to clients who are getting used to it, but for collaborative things like show gardens where I need opinions from widely distributed people it is a god send.. I am still working out how to get it working on the website.. So look back once in a while.