How I work
I think of myself as an enabler, to help make a garden and home as much of a success as it can be. We begin by walking around, listening and talking, listening to the place itself and the ideas will flow. As pictures are so helpful, I find that looking at photographs and books help give inspiration of what might be done.
Choices, options and possibilities are discovered, some are used, others discarded, and gradually the plan emerges. Every garden is different, one needs to be careful but one needs to be bold! There is so much potential anywhere, a tiny city garden or a country garden with fields beyond. A grand house, or cottage, an old house or a house just built.
This is work, but it is also the greatest fun! I am convinced that making a garden should be one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling moments for anyone. We all need a home and today our own patch, large or small, is needed more than ever.
A garden made is an enjoyment in all the years that follow. Like a river, a garden never stands still. It is always changing and moving, there is always something to do, something new to try for the next season.
Architecture and interiors have always fascinated me and I have enormously enjoyed making and decorating my own houses, as well as helping with others. Making our homes, putting our nest together, is a wonderful time when we find and develop our taste and look for new inspiration and achievement.
If everything is easy on the eye, comfortable, beautiful and fitting in, and always interesting whichever the season, always inviting, always friendly and welcoming…. “Echt gezellig!” as they say in Holland… cosy! Smaller or great houses, they need to be cosy!
I love the other worldly, the romantic, seemingly effortless beauty, the look that everything has always been there, but with luxury, glamour and quality. “Have you done much?” is my favourite question to be asked when I have just made a garden from scratch and remodelled the house!
