Growing Spaces

Modern garden makeover

Modern garden makeover

It’s been a real labour of love, but finally our garden makeover is finished and I can share some proper pictures. We have an odd, L-shaped garden and the bit we’ve focused on is an awkward area that runs along one side of the house. It’s a tricky space as a lot of it is shaded, plus it’s an access route through to the side gate, and it’s where we keep our dustbins. It also had dirty and broken concrete paving slabs, and a large and ugly 1970s concrete screen wall. I guess I’d better show you what it looked like before, although…

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Courtyard garden inspiration on the Livingetc house tours

Courtyard garden inspiration on the Livingetc house tours

I had a treat on Friday when I got to nose around some beautiful houses in south west London, on Livingetc magazine’s house tours, with thanks to sponsors ao.com. Together with a group of other bloggers, we got taken around four of the seven homes, and this lush garden space was one of my favourites of the day. The home (which belongs to fabric and accessories designer Neisha Crosland), is a former stables that has been converted to form a two-storey, L-shaped apartment wrapped around a garden oasis in the heart of London, complete with cobblestones, rustic pots of frothy ferns,…

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Ideas for a vertical garden

Ideas for a vertical garden

Source A while back, I pinned this image of a vertical garden (also known as a living wall or green wall) to my “for the garden” Pinterest board. It shows an old pallet used to grow a wall of plants, and I pinned it because we have an ugly wall built from 1970s decorative concrete blocks at the side of our garden which I’m desperate to disguise, and I thought this idea was genius. The concept of a green roof – the roof of a building partially or completely covered with growing vegetation – is probably more familiar than green…

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