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
Read Moreby 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
Read MoreSo it begins! It was great to get on the "big train to the big smoke" on Monday. As I dragged my suitcase through the streets of Wigan towards the train station, my usual penchant for garden design observation kicked in. I began to take in the good, and not so good gardens and landscape architecture within the public spaces around town. I needn't have been too concerned with this, as what lay in store for me was something far more exciting. The London College of Garden Design are hosting the "Spring Info Burst : New Ideas : New materials"
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 Robert Warnes. Sketchup for Landscape design. I have done quite some reading recently on established landscape design principles and conventions, but rarely have I come across anything detailing the specific method and workflow we employ as a company of designers to achieve our garden designs. There will be many garden design purists out there who firmly believe that in order to effectively design it is essential to be able to put pencil to paper and physically draw the garden. I disagree. I am unfortunately not blessed with talent or skill to do this. I do feel however this obstacle can be overcome by
Read More'The way we see it, our gardens don't belong to us alone – they belong to all the wildlife that lives there, eats there or even just uses them as a stopping off point,' says award-winning garden designer Michael John McGarr of Warnes McGarr & Co. 'This could involve the hedgehog that wanders through your garden at night, the birds that stop off in the thick shrubbery, right through to the beetles and woodlice that live under a stone at the end of the garden.' It doesn't take a huge amount of effort to ensure wildlife can flourish in your garden
Read MoreBy Michael McGarr We were really honoured to be asked to speak at the Landscape Show which takes place in London on Wednesday, September 18 and Thursday, September 19. This is one of the biggest exhibitions for the garden and landscape design industry, so we are thrilled to be heading down to the big smoke next week. We will be sitting on a panel on the Wednesday, hosted by the brilliant London College of Garden Design, entitled How to shake up your garden design. Our landscape design and garden design always pushes the boundaries with creativity and innovative new technologies, so we
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 Moreby Michael John McGarr We 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 Garden The garden will be an exhibition in all that is
Read MoreRain gardens are becoming more and more important to include with garden and landscape design across the UK, as well as new house building, right from the off-set. The results of climate change mean warmer but wetter weather, so managing excess rainwater and flooding has never been more important or relevant. Why are rain gardens so important? A rain garden is one that is designed to spread rain run-off and excess water to reduce pooling in one area and to slow down the movement of rainwater to reduce flash flooding. Plants are key here, and perform the function of slowing rainfall across the
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