Posts Tagged ‘Harrington Porter’ < back
Gardens to visit in London
21st Jul:
When you think of going to visit a garden you probably imagine driving out of London to some stately home with its huge grounds and it being a ‘day trip’, this need not be the case.
There are many gardens to see in London and here are a few that we think are worth a visit:
One that has caught my eye is the Roof Top garden at Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank, this has been done in partnership with the Eden Project from Cornwall and is being grown and maintained by the Grounded Ecotherapy group at the housing charity Providence Row together with other community groups. It opened in April and will be there for visits until the 4th September. You can visit it between 10am and 11pm so it could be the perfect place to go after work to wind down.
This garden has stunning views over the river and is the perfect place to escape to during the summer. The Roof Garden has lush lawns, fruit trees, a wild flower area (to attract insects and provide nectar for the bee hives on the Royal Festival Halls roof), patchwork of vegetable plots, pergolas, sweet scented climbers to list a few aspects of it.
This summer there is so much going on at the Southbank, beaches, food festivals, huts and so much more, it’s well worth a visit.
Some smaller gardens to visit in London are:
Chelsea Physic Garden
The Kyoto Japanese garden in Holland Park
Charlton House Peace Garden
Fulham Palace
Chiswick House Gardens
Some bigger and possibly more well known gardens to visit are:
Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew
Kensington Palace Gardens
Hampton Court Palace
Eltham Palace
Syon House and Gardens
Chelsea Flower Show
31st May:
Press Day tickets at Chelsea Flower.
What a luxury. No heaving queues, no standing on tip-toes to see over a mass of purple rinses and camera phones, no jostling for position to get a view of the show gardens. Simply a relaxing walk around (and through) all the gardens, stands and stalls of Chelsea Flower Show 2011.
At first glance the show seemed much the same as year’s gone before; the same suppliers, the same contractors, the same designers (they really are forming quite a clique……..one day!!) consistently impressive bulging, billowing planting schemes, and mind boggling feats of installation. However….to summarise this year’s show as “the same as last year” would not only show me up as someone who didn’t have much insight into our profession, it would also do a disservice to the amazing amount of hardwork and talent that is required to create these one off masterpieces.
The ability of all involved to create in a matter of days (not withstanding all the work off site and months of prep. however) what we at Harrington Porter attempt to construct over several weeks, is what continues to impress me each year. Planting that looks as if it’s been there for years, huge trees up to 6 or 7 metres carted in for dramatic effect, water-wheels, tree stumps, horrendously expensive hand cut stone, swimming pools, and other installations that for one week look, in their own orchestrated environment, that they have been there for years.
So what of this year’s flower show in particular? Our signature style at Harrington Porter is that of the contemporary urban garden. And evidence of this, blinkered or not, is what I look for each year and what impresses me most. And for this reason my choice for best in show was Trailfinders Australian Garden presented by Fleming’s Nurseries designed by Ian Barker. Read more about the Australian Garden here. I loved the futuristic feature seating, the combination of stone and paving, and the stunning white/silver/evergreen planting scheme. The huge water feature pond isn’t really conducive to your typical London garden, but everything else really worked for me. The balance of entertaining space vs planting vs features made it a garden that could genuinely be used – a garden that could realistically be built for someone.
That leads me on to my choice for worst in show. Dirmaund Gavin’s sky garden. Totally indulgent, totally unrealistic, and distinctly average unless you were allowed to go up in the floating garden. Which I wasn’t. I’d guess this creation cost twice as much as most other show gardens, it was certainly twice the size, and whilst it highlighted everything flamboyant and extravagant about Chelsea, personally I thought it was a bit of a dud.
The other garden that really stood out for me was Luciano Giubbilei’s Laurent Perrier garden. This is a designer who’s style I love, and copy! and it was the garden that I had done some background research in to. His style is one of symmetry, clean lines and order, off-set with beautiful features, block planting, and sculpture. And this year’s garden for which he won another gold medal was stunning. I think I’d expected something more formal and architectural with regards to the planting, but he did this with the hard landscaping and softened things with the most beautiful flowing low lying planting. Classic signature features were on show – under-cut feature shrubs, in this case Parrotia persica, beech hedging, and linear Cedec pathway revealing his typically Italianate style. See more of Luciano’s designs here.
Trends that our keen eyes at Harrington Porter noticed this year were:
Green / Living Walls
Water – all manner of shapes, sizes and features
Curves with planting and hard landscaping
Cornus kousa
Vegetable and herb gardening
Green roofs
Blue and yellow planting
February Garden News and Tips
5th Feb:
Welcome to the latest news and tips from the garden maintenace team. Winter seems to be never ending at the moment and I think everyone is now in need of warm weather and some sunshine, including our gardens.
Anyway here at Harrington Porter we are looking forward to the year ahead and below we have listed a few things to do during the month of February in order to help prepare your garden for what hopefully will be a lovely long hot summer.
- Prune any summer flowering shrubs
- Tie in wall trained fruit trees and bushes
- Finish pruning fruit trees
- Dig any unworked vacant ground
- Keep off lawns in frosty weather
- Ensure that the mower is serviced
- Spike lawns to aid drainage
- Provide food and water for garden birds
- Prune back your Wisteria
This year we are trying to encourage more of our clients to think about their gardens earlier in the year, so any maintenance work booked in during February will get a 20% discount on the labour costs. If you have any questions that you want answered by our maintenance team please get in contact and I’m sure we will be able to help you out.
Winter Gardening Tips
11th Jan:
Firstly, on behalf of the Harrington Porter team, let me wish you all a happy new year! I hope that 2010 is a flourishing year for your garden!
Although it is the middle of Winter, now is still a good time for maintenance, especially if your garden didn’t get a thorough Autumn tidy up last year. Now is the ideal time, before Spring, for pruning and training, especially Wisteria, Roses, Clematis and fruit trees. Also, if your garden is looking quite bare and dull at this time of year – it doesn’t need to and we can change that for you! Although certainly less abundant than Spring and Summer, there are a huge range of plants that provide Winter interest throughout the season, and not just in the form of flowers; there are ornamental stems, such as the striking red, orange or yellow stems of the ornamental Dogwoods (Cornus ssp.), or the haunting white stems of Rubus. Colour doesn’t have to be the main feature of ornamental and eye-catching stems as it does, take Corylus avenella ‘Contorta’ – the Corkscrew hazel – has a mass of twisting, gnarled stems that loop and bend in all directions, in fact this plant is at its most striking in Winter, when it has no leaves so the stems can be appreciated much more, plus it is adorned with bright yellow catkins towards the end of Winter. This is just one plant of many that really come into their own at this time of year. Contact us and we can advise on a huge range of plants to provide interest for this season, or any other, and even source the plants for you from reputable and professional suppliers to ensure the best quality.
Hopefully this recent bout of snow hasn’t been too damaging for your garden. As beautiful as snow is, it can be very destructive to tender plants, so I hope you got yours all wrapped up or sheltered before the onslaught. But, it’s not too late to protect tender plants – as long as they are still alive and not wiped out by the recent frosts, then get busy with the fleece, or drag them into a sheltered position. Not only is it the damage from frost that you should watch out for in your garden with this recent snow, but also the actual weight of the snow itself on branches and hedges can be a problem if it is left sitting there for too long. Some plants are fully hardy and will not be bothered at all by this; other plants however are hardy but they will still suffer frost-burn if left with snow on their leaves or crowns for too long. E.g. Cordylines are a good example of this, a hardly plant, but one that is quite susceptible to damage when its crown is wet and then we get regular hard frosts. When in doubt, please contact us and we can advise on particular plants and their susceptibility to frosts as well as suitable ways to protect them.
Although there’s nothing quite as fun as building a big snowman on the lawn with the children, do beware of walking on the lawn when there is snow on it, or indeed when there has been a frost and the ground is frozen. This can be very damaging to the grass which easily snaps and is damaged when frozen and then stepped on – that ‘crunchy’ sound that everyone likes to hear so much when walking on frozen lawns is actually hundreds of blades of grass snapping and breaking internally with each step. There, now, if that hasn’t guilt-tripped you into avoiding the mass slaughter of hapless grass strands then nothing will!
If you have any Winter bedding plants – i.e. in your window boxes or pots, then remember to ‘dead head’! Often people forget and this will quickly result in a plant ceasing to flower. Cyclamen, pansies, violas, primroses, all need to be dead headed before going to seed, this can keep them flowering for months as opposed to a few weeks. And, if you don’t have beautiful Winter or Spring bedding plants in your window boxes or pots – then come on and visit us! We can take care of that for you, and we pride ourselves on really eye-catching and tasteful planting schemes for such situations.
Harrington Porter Website Launch
13th Oct:
Having moved into our new flower shop and garden showroom in Fulham, we are proud to unveil our new website for the 2009/10 gardening season.
Offering an in depth showcase of all our gardening services, from garden design, garden maintenance, landscaping, paving, decking and fencing, together with our new flowers and events service.
We are striving to become London’s premier gardening company, and continue to provide Londoners with quality and affordable gardening services and products.
Our unique selling point, now that we are based in our new premises near Putney Bridge, is that we can offer ‘on the spot’ gardening and landscaping advice to new and existing clients, giving them the opportunity to view at first hand material and plant samples for their garden.
Our new website outlines all our services, as well as a portfolio of past work and we hope that it offers you advice and inspiration to help you make the best of your London home and garden.
We hope you enjoy our new site and look forward to hearing from you soon or seeing you at our new shop at 419 New King’s Road.
New Fulham Florist at Harrington Porter
13th Oct:
Welcome to Harrington Porter Flowers and Events. We offer designer bouquets and arrangements for all occasions.
Harrington Porter Flowers offers a creative and innovative flower design service with gifts starting from only £4.95. All our bouquets, arrangements and gifts are made to order using only fresh seasonal flowers.
Our shop is located in Fulham and we deliver throughout London. Take a look at our collections, designed to cover every special occasion from weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, celebration of a new birth or just to say thank you.
To place an order just come in and see us or call us on 020 7731 3552, if there’s something special that you would like us to design for you.
We also offer luxury house dressing, office dressing, floral design and consultancy. Our exclusive floral house dressing service involves one of our creative floral team visiting your home or place of work and providing an on-site consultation and design especially for you. We can dress your home or place of work for any occasion or on a regular basis.
Our bridal and wedding flower service offers an exclusive, personal and luxury design of beautiful flowers for that most special of days. The flower and design team will work in partnership with the bride and groom to produce the perfect arrangements for the big day.
The Harrington Porter Flower Team insist on and believe in using seasonal flowers and we are always updating our collections to match what is in season.
So if you have something specific in mind please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team and we will be more than happy to create that something special for you.
Hope to see you soon, the Harrington Porter Flower Team.
