Five years since gold at Tatton

Five years ago we were in the middle of building the ultra-futuristic ‘2101’ garden for RHS Tatton, which went onto win a gold award. The concept was around planting for climate change, with huge cowboy-film style Saguaro cacti, as well as the large round ‘mother-in-law’s cushions’ golden barrel cacti. We used large format porcelain paving to create a large path and seating area, with shaded pergola to shade from the intense sun. There was also a rain garden, designed to absorb excess rainwater, for climate extremes. People don’t realise just how much work goes into making a show garden picture-perfect, planning every

• Categories: Advice and tips, Awards, Business news, Cheshire, ecological garden design, ecological landscape design, ecology, Garden design
• June 24th 2022

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Superbloom at the Tower of London

I've been following the fantastic work of visionary designer Nigel Dunnett, with his new project at the Tower of London to commemorate the Queen's Platinum Jubilee.  More than 20 million seeds have been sown in the moats around the historic landmark, which have just recently sprung to life and flowered. The naturalistic planting scheme is carefully planned to evolve into a riot of colour and scents over the summer.  A slide will transport visitors directly down into the flowers, for a fully immersive experience.  As the professor of planting design and urban horticulture, Nigel is well-known for his stunning Olympic 2012 meadows and

• Categories: Advice and tips, Business news, Cheshire, ecological garden design, ecological landscape design, ecology, Garden design
• June 20th 2022

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Award wins for RHS Bridgewater

The RHS Bridgewater welcome building has won a prestigious RIBA architecture award – North West Building of the Year. This is very well deserved news as it really is a beautiful design, housing a café, gift shop and plant centre. The gardens themselves have been hugely popular as the first RHS garden to be created in an urban area. I also noticed that there was recent news of the new National Trust ‘skyline’ garden being created on a viaduct in the Castlefield area of Manchester. Work begun in March and the garden bridge is due to open this summer. Bringing high quality landscape and garden

• Categories: Advice and tips, Architecture, Awards, Business news
• June 10th 2022

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Floating plants at Bridgewater Basin

This week I had a meeting in central Manchester, so I went into town early to take a look at the biodiversity work done around Bridgewater Basin on the Rochdale canal.  Years ago, this was a tired dirty canal basin, surrounded by beautiful buildings such as the Bridgewater Hall. Now it's been given a biodiversity makeover and it is far more in keeping with a modern city centre, that brings together re-development with supporting local ecology.  Now these floating active ecosystems help improve the biodiversity and the water quality, creating a haven for wildlife and obviously increases the aesthetics for passersby. This

• Categories: Advice and tips, Business news, ecological garden design, ecological landscape design, ecology, Garden design
• April 29th 2022

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The success of the hedgehog highway

I read this fabulous piece of news that hedgehog numbers are increasing in urban areas (although not as great news that rural numbers have still dropped.)Your average person’s knowledge of hedgehogs’ habitats has increased due to brilliant education around creating ‘hedgehog highways’ between urban gardens to allow hedgehogs to roam throughout the night.Hedgehogs can travel up to 12 miles per night, so our urban or suburban walls and fences make this really tricky for them. We always design in hedgehog highways into any fences, walls or boundaries that we design – these small factors can make a huge difference. Pictured is

• Categories: Advice and tips, Business news, Cheshire, ecological garden design, ecological landscape design, ecology, Garden design, landscape architecture, Landscape design, Manchester, Press coverage
• March 25th 2022

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Low-maintenance garden design- experiments, developments and lessons in outdoor living.

by Michael John McGarr The first question that many clients ask me on that very first consultation meeting is can I design a beautiful garden that will stay beautiful? How do I create a high-spec luxury outdoor living space that is really and truly low maintenance? My contemporary outdoor living spaces are actually naturally low-maintenance. I would not design a stunning space and then tell you that the huge lawn needs mowing twice a week and you need to hand-weed dandelions out of it (who could be bothered to do that?!). I won't leave you with swathes of bedding plants that need to

• Categories: Advice and tips, Business news, ecological garden design, ecological landscape design, ecology, Garden design, innovation, Lancashire, landscape architecture, Landscape design, Manchester, Michael John McGarr, Outdoor kitchens, Residential garden, sustainable garden design, wildlife
• November 29th 2019

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RHS gold – what does it mean?

by Michael John McGarr The quest for RHS gold is a long and arduous one, and one which is all too familiar to myself. Our gold medal achievement at RHS Tatton 2017 for the futuristic garden design '2101' was a triumph, which took almost a year to plan and just a few short weeks to execute on the ground. Scars, blood and a descent into alcoholism were just some of the by-products of achieving an accolade on the highest stage of one's industry. Overnight success? The myth of the overnight success is prevalent across all industries. The winner holds up the awards for the cameras

• Categories: Awards, Business news, Cheshire, ecological garden design, ecological landscape design, Garden design, innovation, landscape architecture, Landscape design, Manchester, Michael John McGarr, RHS Tatton, Show gardens, Sponsorship, sustainable garden design
• November 26th 2019

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Six ways you can help the environment in your garden

by Michael McGarr Environmental issues are top of the news agenda at the moment, and the recent State of Nature report really hammered home how perilously the UK's fragile ecology was faring. This article I read on the BBC stated that: - In the UK, one in seven species are threatened with extinction - 41% of UK species specified have declined since 1970. - one in five plants are at risk of extinction - wildflowers have been lost at the rate of one species per year since the 1950s. These facts and figures are horrifying and I just hope that our Government will take heed of this

• Categories: Advice and tips, Business news, ecological garden design, ecological landscape design, ecology, Garden design, innovation, landscape architecture, Landscape design, Michael John McGarr, Residential garden, sustainable garden design, wildlife
• October 21st 2019

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Five things to consider before redesigning your garden

When it comes to garden design, planning should take place during the colder months to allow the greatest reward in terms of enjoying the garden during the hottest months of the year," says Michael John McGarr, director and garden designer at Warnes McGarr & Co. Spring is a season full of potential for both the plants about to spring to life in your garden, but also for homeowners to lay the seeds of their garden design planning ideas. The arrival of spring also means that summer is just around the corner, so take the time now to really think about how you want

• Categories: Advice and tips, Architecture, Awards, Business news, Cheshire, ecological garden design, ecological landscape design, ecology, Garden design, innovation, Lancashire, landscape architecture, Landscape design, Michael John McGarr, Outdoor kitchens, Press coverage, Residential garden, Show gardens, sustainable garden design, wildlife
• October 19th 2019

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Houzz awards 2019 – Award Winning Landscape Design.

Houzz Awards 2019 - Warnes McGarr & Co. - Award Winning Landscape Design. Awarded by the community of over 40 million monthly users, annual BOH badge highlights home renovation & design professionals with Top ratings and most popular home designs  "Warnes - McGarr & Co. of  Wigan has won “Best Of Design ” on Houzz®, the leading platform for home renovation and design. The multi award winning landscape design and build company was chosen by the more than 40 million monthly unique users that comprise the Houzz community from among more than 2.1 million active home building, renovating and design industry professionals. The Best Of Houzz is

• Categories: Advice and tips, Architecture, Awards, Bolton, Business news, Cheshire, Garden design, garden lighting, Housebuilding, Lancashire, landscape architecture, Landscape design, Manchester, Michael John McGarr, Outdoor kitchens, Press coverage, rain gardens, Residential garden, RHS Tatton, Robert Warnes, Show gardens, sketchup, Sponsorship, Uncategorised, Wigan
• February 4th 2019

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Garden lighting in landscape design

By Michael John McGarr Garden lighting in landscape design. Garden lighting in landscape design is extremely important and it is often an afterthought for most clients. However, we encourage them to think about lighting early on. In our British climate, our garden is viewed most of the year from the interior of the property so it is paramount that lighting is effective. This is particularly poignant in winter when shorter days render lighting the most effective feature within a garden. It always make me smile when clients use their garden lighting systems to wow guests at winter dinner parties. It never occurred to them that they would be

• Categories: Advice and tips, Architecture, Awards, Bolton, Business news, Cheshire, Garden design, garden lighting, Housebuilding, Lancashire, landscape architecture, Landscape design, Manchester, Michael John McGarr, Outdoor kitchens, Press coverage, rain gardens, Residential garden, RHS Tatton, Show gardens, sketchup, Wigan
• January 16th 2019

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