Blue Daisy Blog

In case you’ve missed mention of it The RHS Chelsea Flower Show has been on this week and I’ve been gutted that I haven’t had the opportunity to go down and check it out for myself this year.  While it’s for a good reason - I’ve been so busy doing designs for Blue Daisy's own clients - not being able to get there in person hasn't stopped me taking a sneaky peek at the TV occasionally.  From what I’ve managed to see, here are some of my favourite garden designer bits:

Designer Chris Beardshaw never seems to disappoint, and this year he continues to inspire with his Arthritis Research Garden.  A personal journey for him - he was diagnosed with arthritis in his teens - his planting is absolutely gorgeous and I just love the scupture that's forming the focal point in this shot. 

This garden is a sum of its parts and is split into 3 sections that represent the journey that arthritis sufferers go through from diagnosis through to managing their condition effectively and with confidence.  The warm, vibrant planting in this image forms the Radiant Garden, representative of that final happier stage.  See Chris Beardshaw talk about his 2013 show garden here.

Chris won a well deserved gold medal for his efforts and the coveted People's Choice award.

How people use colour is quite personal and if one person said the colour red to 20 people, those 20 people would view the colour red in different tones or hues.  This means that colour is subjective and is undoubtedly affected by our own likes and dislikes as well as location, light levels and use of the garden.

Colours can appear in different ways to us for example, red is classed as a ‘hot colour’ and it really does demand your attention and has the effect of coming towards you.  Yellow also comes towards you but isn’t as demanding as red yellow tends to reflect available light.  Green is ‘cool’, it makes a good backdrop to other colours and blue is a very cool colour that often seems to merge with the background and looks smaller to its red counterpart.  

Well it has been a very exiting day today I have been to see one of my garden designs being brought to life.  When I arrived at my customers house the builders were there working away and have so far laid the patio, built a wall and given it a first render, built the pond (see below), installed the water chute and the electrician was there too! 

As you know Nicki has been studying the HNC in Garden Design at Pershore College, she has registered with Lantra for a small amount of funding to support her on the course.

This particular funding is for women training or re-training in a male dominated industry and she has been nominated for an award!

The awards are being held at Nailcote Hall on 30 March 2011 so watch this space!!  If you want to find out more about it click here!