SoundPlace&Time

While I do enjoy writing these blogs, despite the fact that I only have one subscriber (who happens to be one of my oldest friends that I’ve known since high school), I thought maybe I should expand my subject matter and write about other interesting stuff. That was the intention of this blog. As the subheading suggests; Garden Design, Landscape of the Mind . . . and Music in Between. Besides, I have written around fourteen entries already about garden design and horticulture. And while that is all good sometimes it does feel like I’m singing from a ‘set-list’ as it were that is becoming too familiar to me. That is not to say SoundPlace&Time will no longer be about British gardening culture, of course it will be. I just thought it would also be cool to write about other interesting stuff, like some of the places I have been fortunate enough to visit this year. One of which was Croatia’s capital city; Zagreb.                   ...

  A little while back, I was recommended by an acquaintance to pay a visit to a double-fronted Terrace house in the west London suburb of Acton to discuss the idea of designing the Household’s back garden. The Household consists of five Nuns-in-Residence who belong to the Society of Medical Mission Sisters whose role is community advocacy and health services activism. Their house is, in fact, two terraces with the façade of two front doors. It is a large brown brick house with sections of the dividing wall removed to allow for more space and thus making it one house. The clients’ home interior is very warm and welcoming, reflective of the line of work they do within their community. And given that all five Nuns are from different parts of the world, their décor expresses an international community ideal. Lots of traditional ornaments and soft furnishings were on display from Kenya, Colombia, Indonesia, India, and the United States. Regardless of the diverse collection of the clie...

When I was in-between jobs last year (i.e. waiting for my next office job to come through) I took the pleasure of working as a ‘Residential Gardener’ for most of the summer. Granted general clean-up duties could sometimes be a drag, but there were many occasions where we would plant a shipment of new plants and shrubs. Straight from the nursery, off the truck, into the garden. This was always a lot of fun. Once everything was planted it was then a case of standing back and simply appreciating the work we had just done. One thing I used to sometimes notice was the mild apprehension on a client’s face once everything was planted. You could read their faces sometimes; “This doesn’t really look like what I saw in last month’s ‘Gardens Illustrated’ magazine.” Followed by a very hesitant, “So . . . these plants will definitely grow and move into shape, yeah?” Yes, they most certainly will. I would often take the liberty of reassuring the client that the image they saw which had so ...

Just following on from my last blog entry about my recent visit to RHS Wisley, Surrey. I shall write more in depth about some recent stuff I've learnt in my Garden Design studies a little on. Here are some more beautiful images taken on the Last Day of Summer.