Clik here to view.
Cycle infrastructure expenditure in the UK and Holland
Cycling infrastructure in Amsterdam (left) and London’s Battersea (right) The UK spends £2/person/year on cycling Holland spends £24/person/year. So Holland has better cycling infrastructure. The Dutch...
View ArticleThe Manali to Leh Highway & Landscape Change in Ladakh
Taking the footage for this video, in September 2014, was a good opportunity to reflect on landscape change in a hitherto remote region of India: Ladakh. There are many considerations: Ladakh was an...
View ArticleTower of London Poppy Art Installation / Landscape Architecture
Here is the text of the above video reviews of Paul Cummins and Tom Piper’s Blood-swept lands and seas of red, where angels fear to tread. The poppy installation at the Tower of London is by Paul...
View ArticlePlease stop killing London's cyclists and pedestrians – give them good...
Here is a video of the recent Stop Killing Cyclists protest march in Oxford Street. It was very well organised, with a theatrical dash, but did not get the media coverage it deserved. There was a...
View ArticleIs Greenwich Park London’s most interesting Royal Park?
I think the answer is ‘yes’ – and it should certainly be included in London garden tours. For a start, it is the oldest of London’s Royal Parks. Greenwich has associations with the period in British...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bring the royal barge, Gloriana, to Greenwich
Bringing Gloriana to Greenwich is a great idea As explained on the video about Greenwich Park, Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were rowed from Whitehall Palace to Greenwich Palace in a royal barge. So...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Great Garden Design by Ian Hodgson – review
Ian Hodgson Great Garden Design book jacket The Society of Garden Designers has produced a very good book on garden design. I commend it to anyone commissioning a garden and to future historians of...
View ArticleReview of the show gardens at the 2015 Chelsea Flower Show
Please see this page for video reviews of selected show gardens. I’ve been too hot at Chelsea and I’ve been too cold. On Press Day, in 2015, I was too wet and too windswept. When the sun came out in...
View ArticleLee Rigby Memorial bikers ride from Greenwich Park to Woolwich 22 May 2015
In addition to many other design objectives, public parks should be designed as good places to hold public events and demonstrations. The main avenue in Greenwich Park was not designed for this...
View ArticleDry stone walling in Crossbones Garden, a 2015 Chelsea Fringe event
Dry stone walling is flexible; it does not use mortar; it is good for wildlife; it is a sustainable. The only minus points arise if fuel is used for quarrying and transporting the stone. This video is...
View ArticleShould London be a National Park?
The current proposal for London to be a National Park appears, to me, ill-conceived. It is a great city and its open space planning needs staffing and funding, but I can’t see sufficient kinship with...
View ArticlePinjore Yadavindra Mughal Garden
Pinjore Gardens deserve more recognition as an example of the Mughal style. There is much more which could and should be done but the restoration work already carried out is good and the water...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tour of English gardens around Windsor and Bath
The country between Windsor and Bath has long been popular with people who are ‘tired of London’ and many of them have charming gardens made by famous designers. The Windsor to Bath Sisley Garden Tour...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Chelsea Flower Show, Sissinghurst, Wisley and Tatton Park Garden Tour
England is rightly famed as ‘the garden country’ and it would be a pity, surely, to visit England without seeing some of its gardens. So we recommend a 3-day classic gardens tour which includes visits...
View ArticleClik here to view.
LAA Landscape Architects Website
LAA Landscape Architects website This blog has covered both designed gardens and landscape architecture for 7 years but have decided: to use this blog for garden design, garden history and garden...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cotswold Garden Tour of Hidcote, Highgrove and private gardens
Chipping Campden is a ‘garden town’ in the Cotswolds Chipping Campden is a small market town in the Cotswolds, described as ‘the most beautiful village street now left on the island’ (G.M. Trevelyan...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Great Gardens of London, Victoria Summerley – book review by Tom Turner
Good writing and good photography are real assets for garden books. Great Gardens of London was produced by a skilled investigative journalist working with two expert photographers. Victoria Summerley...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Gardens of Fletcher Steele, Priscilla Elliott – book review by Tom Turner
The Gardens of Fletcher Steele by Priscilla Elliott I opened this short book with some puzzlement, wondering why the author wrote it when a longer book had been published in 1989 and revised in 2003...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Tivoli Companion,Tim Cawkwell – book review by Tom Turner
A Tivoli Companion Tim Cawkwell Tim Cawkwell’s 78-page book Tivoli Companion is, scholarly, enjoyable and puzzling in equal measure. The puzzle, for a reviewer, is the intended audience. I guess I know...
View ArticleAlan Titchmarsh on creating a “Stylish Garden”
Hard to know what I would write if the Sunday Express asked me to do a few hundred words on garden design but I can put some helpful advice in one sentence: ‘don’t take advice from Alan Titchmarsh‘....
View Article
