by Michael John McGarrThe 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
Read MoreHouzz 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
Read MoreBy 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
Read MoreBy Michael John McGarr Our niche within landscape design in 2019. Our niche within landscape design in 2019 has developed from our passion to create gardens that people can use all year round, as well as a continuing trend for outdoor living.We feel that a traditional lawned garden with flower beds around the edges is designed to be viewed through the window and perhaps mowed once a week in the summer to keep it looking spick and span. We can achieve so much more...[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="3600"] Outdoor living space and outdoor kitchen in a landscape design in 2019 by Warnes-McGarr &
Read MoreRHS Tatton 2018 in Cheshire launched today, so we were incredibly pleased to present The Poisonous Garden. It was amazing to see crowds of people flowing in when the gates opened at 10am - this might be the busiest year that we've seen yet.We've been planning this design for the best part of 2018, and it's taken us a really long time to find just the right suppliers and the right materials. At 650 sq m, this is a huge project so it was worth every second taken to get it looking perfect.Here is the extensive planting list for the
Read MoreThis week we started on site managing the build of the Poisonous Garden - the pretty large and high profile exhibit for this year's RHS Tatton Flower Show.After three years of creating award-winning show gardens at RHS Tatton, which takes place at Tatton Park in Cheshire, we did look at designing something for other RHS shows. However, in January this year, we were asked by the brilliant RHS events team if we would design the Poisonous Garden. It seems they like what we've been doing and we were honoured to be asked to partner up with them.So, after months and
Read MoreIf you were casually flicking through The Telegraph weekend gardening section over the Easter Bank Holiday weekend, you may have thought - I recognise that face! I recognise that garden full of cacti!Yes, we were featured in a double-page spread this weekend by fantastic garden writer Annie Gatti headlined: Six fresh faces in garden design - how will they change the world? Annie contacted us back in September last year for a chat after we won a gold medal at RHS Tatton 2017, so we've been keeping our eyes out ever since for the resulting feature.It was an honour to
Read MoreAs former musicians, who still play in their spare time, garden and landscape designers Michael and Rob like bringing their rock and roll approach to re-designing their clients' outdoor living spaces.By Michael McGarrAs a qualified garden designer and ecologist, I believe our outdoor living spaces should do five things. These are:- Take no effort to look after - Encourage wildlife - Produce food - Look amazing - Be an extension of your indoor living space and style This is my starting point for working with clients and for taking a look at how they want to use their space. This
Read Moreby Michael John McGarrWe are immensely pleased and excited to announce that Warnes McGarr & Co will be designing and project-managing the Poisonous Garden in association with The RHS for the Tatton Flower in July.After three award-winning years of designing show gardens - including last year's gold-award winning 2101 garden - we're really honoured to be asked back again to design this large visitor attraction.RHS Tatton in Knutsford, Cheshire is also celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2018 so it really is going to be an exciting year.About The Poisonous GardenThe garden will be an exhibition in all that is
Read MoreWhile at RHS Tatton in July this year exhibiting our multi award-winning garden, our garden designer Michael John McGarr was interviewed by Peter Donegan from The Sod Show.We were already aware of fellow garden designer Pete's brilliant podcasts, so were honoured to be chosen to be featured. Michael had a great chat with Pete about setting up his own consultancy, the pressures of following your own creative path and designing and building show gardens.Take a listen to The Sod Show podcast below and you can always drop them a line on Twitter @sodshow to let them know you enjoyed it.
Read MoreWe are immensely chuffed that our Cactus-Direct: 2101 garden won triple awards at RHS Tatton 2017 in Cheshire - including the much-coveted GOLD award.On Tuesday, July 18, we were awarded a Gold medal, as well as Best Construction in Show and Best Future Spaces garden, so it's fair to say we were very happy indeed.Anyone who's read our previous blog posts about the RHS Tatton - Announcing 2101 and Countdown to RHS Tatton knows how hard we've worked and how ambitious our garden concept was to execute.The judging process for RHS Shows is notoriously tough, and we worked extremely hard
Read MoreOur RHS Tatton show garden is going absolutely amazingly and we're being asked for our planting list by so many people already that we thought we'd make it available to everyone.Be sure to tag us @warnesmcgarr if you post a photo of our Cactus-direct: 2101 garden on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.Garden title: 2101Main sponsor: cactus-direct.co.ukGarden designer: Michael John McGarrContractor/ builder: Warnes McGarr & Co Ltd Planting listYucca FiliferaYucca RostrataYucca glorisoaTrithrinax campestrisNannorrhops ritchianaButia odorataVitis vinifera muscatEchinocactus grusonii (600mm wide specimen barrel cacti)Polaskia Chichipe (1500mm high specimen cacti)Pinus sylvestrisAlnus glutinosaBetula nigraSanguisorba "tanna"Iris germanicaSedum "purple emperor"Euphorbia characiasVerbena bonariensisCarex morrowiiPersicariaVeronicastrumPrimula vialiiHostaThalictrumGeraniumGeumHemerocallisLobelia hapsdens blueEupatorium baby JoeThymus
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