Small garden design course Your first task

Here we go everyone - are you ready? Today, I’m setting you the first really easy task, that requires just a bit of thinking and maybe some notes - maybe this project even deserves a whole new fresh notebook… I’m going to be talking you through the ideas, and using a brand new garden that I’ve designed as an example to help you. I’m then going to open up the Chat for you to upload your photos - there’s no rush, as I’ll be checking it frequently. A quick bit of housekeeping: You’ve asked me, and so here we are: there are two new Zoom dates coming up: There’ll be a re-run of ‘Finding your way around The Gardening Mind and how to use Substack’ on Wednesday 21st February at 6pm UK time. On Sunday 3rd March at 5pm UK time, there’ll be a Zoom for anyone who’s following the Small Garden series - we’ll get together and talk through experiences so far, and it’s also a nice opportunity to chat with newly-made acquaintances here on The Gardening Mind. Thanks everyone who has joined in the Chat on Show Garden news - it really is nail-biting and hair-raising and spine-tingling all at the same time, and I’m glad you’re with me on the journey! Your encouragement and humour are really welcome, so stay tuned for more news on this never-been-done-before show garden project. Leave a comment Up till this very moment, you might have thought that you didn’t have the skills to design your garden. I’m going to prove to you that you DO indeed have those skills, and just imagine: in the next few months, you’ll have an actual plan for your garden space. You really will. Here we go:... The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson © 2024 Jo Thompson 201 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JA

Where to start, literally where to start, with a garden design Let’s start at the very beginning - the front door JO THOMPSON JAN 27 ∙ PREVIEW

Photo: Marissa Daeger Today I’m going to be taking a look at a part of garden design which tends to get forgotten, but which is absolutely fundamental to the success of the design. The entrance. I’d like to thank everyone who has messaged this week to say how much The Gardening Mind means to them - it’s been truly amazing. I’m not sure what sparked this off - whether it was the Zoom in which I spilled a lot of show garden secrets and design progress, or maybe it was the AMA (Ask Me Anything). I’ll probably never know, but thank you - each message packs a huge punch as it arrives. There’s another Zoom taking place this coming week - it’s a How to find your way round The Gardening Mind session, how to interact and how to find stuff: this is going to be on Monday 29th January at 7pm UK time. It’ll be a really useful session. I’ll be looking at all the features and sections here on TGM, such as Chat, Notes, and how to find Zoom links, and showing you how you can upload images and share ideas. This will come in really useful if you’re planning to take part in the upcoming Small Garden Design Course. This Zoom is for paid subscribers and I’ll be emailing the invitation to it beforehand. This Zoom will also help you join in the regular Sunday Show Us Your Plots session, which runs all day (and longer!) on Chat. I post a real, unfiltered photo of my garden, taken on the day, and then I ask you to join in. We’ve had some great photos so far. If you’re looking for the Chat, you can either find it on your profile page here: or on The Gardening Mind home page here: Tap either the speech bubble or ‘Chat’ - the latter will take you directly to our own Gardening Mind Chat. So make a note to come and have a look at what’s happening on the Chat on Sunday! Before the Small Garden Design series starts, let’s take a look at a garden feature that’s relevant to gardens of any size: When I go to visit a new project, I’m often asked to consider the entrance to the garden, the front door. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the words ‘People don’t know where to go when they arrive’ - I can usually predict this as when I arrived I myself will have floundered around for a bit trying to work out where the front door is. This isn’t just relevant to larger houses with drives; if the entrance isn’t clear and welcoming, it may create a moment’s hesitation. And even if the front door is obvious, as in the examples below, you want to welcome people with an uplifting, satisfying scene which tells them that you want them to head your way. The key is in that word: you want it to look welcoming. There’s nothing like a welcoming front door to set the scene for the atmosphere to follow: smart, relaxed, elegant, romantic and always magical, you kind of breathe a sigh of relief as you spot the features that signal that this is where to go, and that this place is happy to have you. It positively welcomes you. There’s a sense that the place is cared for, looked, after and loved, and you absolutely want to go in. front doors with roses growing around them Gorgeous welcomes. Photo with pink door - Gardenista Just like anything attractive, a welcoming entrance come-hithers you, and before you know it, you’re walking up to the front door, taking in all the plant eye candy on the way. So how can you achieve this? I’m going to take you through the elements which all come together to create a welcome that will stay in people’s minds, and most importantly, which will make you happy every time you see it. Let’s take a look at this example:... The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson © 2024 Jo Thompson 201 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JA

Ask me Anything What's on your Gardening Mind today?

Hello everyone, wherever you are and from our regular Show Us Your Plots Sunday feature on the Chat, it’s evident that you really are all over the world - we had posts from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland , Hawaii, California, Texas and Australia this week, and I can’t tell you just how happy that makes me. Please do join in on this chat if you have a moment - I launch a new one every Sunday, and you can add your photo at any time. Once I’ve started the Show Us Your Plots subject thread (thread means conversation or chat, basically), you can then take part by tapping on the speech bubbles either on the page here or the Chat icon on the Substack app. I’ve shown my Mum how to do this and believe me, if I think she can do it, then I promise you can do it too. And then it’s super-easy to upload the photo - simply tap the little photo icon at the bottom of your screen and it will ask you to upload. But if you have any questions, just let me know. Leave a comment So, it’s time for this week’s Ask Me Anything - What’s on Your Gardening Mind? As I say every time, no garden-related question is too silly: No question can be as silly as I look here, enjoying the season’s new dahlias. You might have a question about when to prune, how to store your bulbs, how to choose a gardening course … anything. Many of these questions and answers will then expand into bigger features in our How to Garden section, so it’s an endless and joyous circle of information sharing! Leave a comment Just like in last week’s Substack’s AMA, I’m going to be trying my hardest to reply to your questions about the gardening world. How to learn to garden, what to plant, how to grow stuff and why even bother, questions about sowing seeds and planting bulbs (it’s not too late by the way, garden design ideas, planting design, careers in gardening, and the world of show gardens if you’re ever heard of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Basically, ANYTHING to do with gardens and gardening. And if you joined in Tuesday’s Show Garden Update on Zoom, you may have questions about that too… Leave a comment Just before we start, many of you have been asking about soil, seeds, and for simple places planting ideas: you can find features on these in our How to Garden section. We look at soil and compost here: Getting to know your garden - Storecupboard Basics 1 Getting to know your garden - Storecupboard Basics 1 JO THOMPSON · SEPTEMBER 2, 2023 Read full story Get the soil right and your plants will be happy. Imagine living on a diet of processed food. Chances are you’ll survive, but you won’t be operating as well as if you were including fresh fruit and vegetables regularly. The soil is the same. Deprive it, starve it and neglect it and your plants won’t thank you. And we chat about essential garden tools and sowing seeds here: How to Garden - Storecupboard Basics 2 How to Garden - Storecupboard Basics 2 JO THOMPSON · SEPTEMBER 30, 2023 Read full story When you open the seed packet, there’ll probably be over a hundred or so in there, which you really don’t want to use all at once, plus they’ll tip out if you empty them directly into the soil. So instead, pour a few into the palm of your hand, and then sprinkle them along. Not too generously, but don’t worry if they seem close together in the ground; they almost certainly will be too close and when the shoots come up, you can tackle the dreaded thinning-out. This task is actually easy to do, although psychologically hard for softies. We’ve also had questions on how to design parts of gardens or even whole gardens, small and large. I’d suggest joining in on our Small Garden Design course which is running again this year, starting soon! Right, and now it’s over to you! Click the Leave a Comment button and Ask me Anything. And remember, you can also comment on each other’s comments if you’d like to. I can't wait hear what’s on your Gardening Mind: The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson © 2024 Jo Thompson 201 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JA Unsubscribe

How to design show gardens and small gardens Plus: a plant for the winter garden, with planting combination ideas JO THOMPSON JAN 20

Well, what’s the temperature like where you are? It’s pretty chilly here, with morning temperatures down to -5, and my clay soil has basically turned to rock, not the most welcoming of surfaces to dig into. And so it is that this year too, the remaining tulip bulbs are going to be scattered on top of the ground with compost on top of them, in my usual late January style. If you’ve decided to stay indoors for the duration, browsing through the seed and bulb catalogues, remember that there are plenty of summer bulbs ideas here on The Gardening Mind. In our online chat this week, many of you mentioned that you’re busy planning changes to your plots, as getting on with your garden design tweaks and plans is an excellent cold-weather job, so I’m delighted to let you know that by popular demand, the Small Garden Design Course is back! I’m going to be once more sharing hints and tips and tricks and thoughts gathered over my nearly 30 years in the business, starting off at the very beginning of the process of how to go about designing a small space. It may be the whole of your garden that you want to take a look at, or just a smaller area of your garden: it’s totally up to you. It won’t be too technical, and I think we’re going to have a lot of fun. You can either simply observe, or if you want to join in, all you’ll need is a notepad, something to scribble with, and a large mug of tea or coffee. And maybe a biscuit or two. That’s it. This course is for everyone - new and old members alike, so whether you started last year and want to share your progress, or whether you’ve just joined TGM recently and would love to know how to go about designing your small garden (or large - the things we discuss apply to gardens of all sizes), this new series will take place on Chat and the occasional Zoom. Don’t panic if you’re not sure what Chat is, as I’ll be talking you through how to navigate it. So look out for this in February. On the subject of zooms, there are two coming up soon, so do make sure they’re in your diaries: next Wednesday 23rd January 6pm UK (the invitation to this is at the end of this post) I’m going to be showing you images of the completed show garden drawings, and on Monday 29th January 7pm UK, I’ll be taking you on a tour around the Gardening Mind so that you know where to find everything. And there’s always this guide if you’re wondering where to find things in the meantime. blue sky and sheep in field. Beautiful orange sunset Morning and evening in Sussex, UK Despite the cold, I really do want to get out and finish the pruning: this can be a lovely garden job when the sky is blue and bright and the sunsets set the sky alight. But pruning doesn’t involve enough moving around to keep warm, and so it will have to wait whilst I turn my mind to how I can improve the planting’s winter structure for next year. It’s kind of ok. Currently, the garden is being carried through winter with the structure created by some tall Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Silver Queen’, along with the white stems of Betula utilis subsp. jacquemontii and the flaming balayage orange-to-red stems of Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire.’ But there’s something missing. The issue is at ground level. It’s crying out for some more interest, something FUN, and I absolutely know what I should have done. I’d had such good intentions when I wrote last year about the love-it-or-loathe-it bergenia, but as with many good intentions, the actual planting of it never quite happened. Spring seduced me with tulips, summer distracted me with roses, and autumn fooled me with winter grasses. No need for any more winter structure, I’d told myself: the garden will get by without it. plants with purple leaves and pink and white flowers You can find this plant list later in this post. Photo Howard Rice/GAP But the fact is right now, back in winter again, it’s me and not my garden, who’s disappointed. If I’d got on with planting the bergenia when I said I would, I could now be enjoying the russets and bronzes and greens of these easy plants which have somehow become unfashionable. So this year, I’m vowed to plant some when I can actually dig a hole – and I’ve come up with an easy recipe for a bergenia winter planting which you can find later in this post. But before I share that with you, I’m going to take you out of the world of plants for a moment, and take you instead on a dive into the show garden design whose progress I committed to sharing with you. And when I say progress, I don’t just mean the finished plans, but the whole grisly lot, from writer’s block, through lightbulb moments, to the finished design…. But first, what even is a show garden. What is the point of them? Where are they found? Something new, something which had never been done before. We looked at shapes, we discussed possibilities and we leafed through precedent images, all with the intention of creating something different. What we were all keen on was the idea of Nature as part of the built environment, instead of making way for the built environment. Trees as housemates. There’s a whole world of garden and flower shows out there – you may have heard of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, but there are many others. Most of these temporary shows last a week or so, such as the RHS shows, and shows in Melbourne and China. Some take place inside big convention centres, eg Northwest Flower and Garden Show¹ in Seattle and Philadelphia. Some last for months, eg Chaumont, and some for years,. I’ve been to flower shows in St Petersburg, Japan and Dubai and they are all extraordinary in their different ways. If you’d like a taster of what it’s like to physically build these gardens, head to the Show Garden section on The Gardening Mind. At these shows, designers create gardens full of ideas both old and new, with the aim of inspiring, encouraging, and generally making the visitor feel happy. These gardens can be small plots, sometimes they can be huge, and after three weeks of building, they are opened to the public and to the judges, for everyone to have their say. This sometimes seemingly-impossible task of creating a truly realistic garden is a labour of love for sure, and every time you do it, you swear you’ll never do it again. These gardens take months, years even, to design and plan. If you’ve read last week’s column, you’ll know that I’ve committed to designing one of these gardens in the space of two weeks. The Shenzhen Flower Show got in touch and asked if JTLGD² would like to particpate, In the same moment, my brain said No and my mouth said Yes. How does that happen? So what ideas did I have at that point in time when I clearly wasn’t in full charge of my mind? I was going to post a photo of a blank piece of paper, but I decided that you’re perfectly able to imagine that for yourselves. That’s what I started off with. I did have some colours and materials in mind because of that sumptuous Top 100 romantic plants palette, and I had the seed of an idea from a previous garden, as shown in the moodboard we looked at last time. This idea had been percolating the back of my brain since a garden at RHS Chatsworth, where I created a 100m long sculpture which wound its way along and cantilevered out over the River Derwent. I’d then expanded on this in 2018 at RHS Chelsea, where we created a ‘Swallowtail’ pavilion. Since then I’ve longed to develop this idea of the transparent pavilion, using new technology and creating something that would sit as a sculpture as the main event in a garden space. But that’s just all words Now come the questions, the niggles, the doubts. How to even start? And it’s all very well having these ideas, but who will build it? Who will make sure that it works – in the sense that it stays up and definitely doesn’t fall down? And as the designer doesn’t even get attend the build phase of this show, how on earth do we convey the ideas to the builders? Drawings are all very well, but wouldn’t it be good to have something more, that very special something? But most importantly of all for a show garden is the magic - what will make this stand apart? This was my first lightbulb moment and I’ll be talking about this in next week’s Zoom. Let’s rewind four months back to September 2023: In the garden of a palazzo in Venice, just off a busy shopping street, I was being shown the most extraordinary self-supporting vaulted structure, Graceful curves and a swoop of a sculpture brought the 15th and 21st centuries together in a feat of novel technology. I was lucky enough to be introduced to Sigrid Adriaenssens of the Form Finding Lab, the engineers and designers of this very special project at the Venice Architecture Biennale. And back to the present: This, then, would be my starting point... Subscribe to The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson to read the rest. Become a paying subscriber of The Gardening Mind by Jo Thompson to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. Upgrade to paid A subscription gets you: Subscriber-only posts and full archive Access to 'Gardeners' Question Time" Q&A, post comments and interact with the community Access to subscriber-only courses, design advice and garden tips and ideas. 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Romantic gardens - how to create the magic Plus: Top 100 romantic plants, annual seeds to order now, an inspirational book, a new series on show gardens, and the winners of December's book giveaway JO THOMPSON JAN 6 ∙ PREVIEW

 

Romantic gardens - how to create the magic

Plus: Top 100 romantic plants, annual seeds to order now, an inspirational book, a new series on show gardens, and the winners of December's book giveaway

JO THOMPSON JAN 6 ∙ PREVIEW I think it’s time for a bit of romance and a bit of colour therapy I’ve said it before: let’s do what gardening often makes us do, which is to put grey skies and cold temperatures behind us: let’s instead look forward to all the good things that are to come as our world circles round. Let’s look forward to the colours of Spring, the palest lemons of daffodils that seduce even the most vehement yellow-hater. Before we know it, our flowerbeds and grassy areas will be sprinkled with the palest blues of scillas and baby iris - don’t worry if you didn’t manage to plant these tiny spring bulbs last year, as we’ll always have reminders and how-tos here on The Gardening Mind, as ever, with plant suggestions and planting suggestions both familiar and new ideas too. You’re very possibly thinking that it might be a bit late for some bulbs, but if you’ve still got some tulip bulbs hanging around that you’ve procrastinated and procrastinated about, and which you’ve written off for this year and are about to consign to the compost heap, can I just say now: don’t do it! Give planting them a go - I can tell you from experience that you’ve nothing to lose: "There are times when you are totally fulfilled and happy" and others when you may be "depressed and disappointed and even jealous of other people's gardens. But you can't get divorced from your garden. You're with it, for better or worse, in sickness and in health." "There are times when you are totally fulfilled and happy" and others when you may be "depressed and disappointed and even jealous of other people's gardens. But you can't get divorced from your garden. You're with it, for better or worse, in sickness and in health." © 2024 Jo Thompson 201 Borough High Street, London SE1 1JA