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
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 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 Moreby Michael John McGarrI did a talk to a group of garden design students recently where I spoke about extrospective influence. This is something I truly believe makes me a better designer, and overall, better at the creative process.So what is extrospective influence?For me, it's using any medium of art to gain creative influence, and to spark off a chain of thoughts and ideas, which culminate in a theme or concept, which is then workable into a new client brief.Although I am passionate about garden and landscape design and ecology, I rarely read garden design or landscape magazines
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