After attending Adam Frost’s September Masterclass, I wrote in a previous post about his ideas for thinking about designing and using your garden space.
Adam’s second topic was about getting inspiration for our garden from other walks of life and our other passions. Ideas for his new garden came from the poet John Clare who was local to Stamford, the tailor and designer Sir Paul Smith and the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Who or what would be your choices for inspiration?
Maybe poems, paintings, shapes, colours, holidays, sculptures, favourite fabrics……here are mine.
Collier Campbell
Collier Campbell
This lovely book is full of wonderful patterns
Collier Campbell – sisters Susan Collier and Sarah Campbell together transformed fabric and interior design in the 1960s, mixing the style and methods of William Morris with vivid Mediterranean colours and warmth. Their designs were used by Habitat, Liberty, Osborne and Little and many others. Sarah Campbell is still designing and teaching and you can see her current work here
Japanese moss gardens
Japanese gardens show us how tranquil and beautiful a garden can be where dozens of shades of green are the predominant colours. I have visited moss gardens and they left me with the love of simple plants, green plants and the beauty of moss on a stone. I don’t want to create a Japanese garden myself but relying on green, especially through winter, is a great idea.
Moss on a stone at East Lambrook Manor Gardens
East Lambrook Manor Gardens
I will be writing about my favourite garden East Lambrook Manor Gardens in a future post but here I mention it as being the quintessential cottage garden and my template for what I want to achieve. You can find out more here.
Grade I listed cottage garden – East Lambrook in Somerset
David Hockney for bold blocks of colour.
David Hockney’s book is from his exhibition at the Royal Academy
If you are at all drawn to Hockney’s work, why not bring splashes of colour into your garden? If you like Monet I guess you would dot bits of colour all over the garden to create a haze, but a Hockney use of colour could mean a big bold block, like using our parasol to cheer the garden up.
My red and orange colour scheme inspired by David Hockney’s use of colour
Kaffe Fassett – fabulous with colours
Kaffe Fassett’s autobiography is a wonderful inspiration for all things colourful
Kaffe Fassett from California revolutionised handknitting with his use of colour and has influenced fabrics, mosaics, tapestries, quilts, rugs and costume design since the 1960s.
He made mosaic pots for a Hillier garden at Chelsea Flower Show in 1998 and I fell in love with them.
A page from his autobiography showing his mosaics for Hillier’s Chelsea Garden
And here is my little piece of mosaic – made for me by an artistic neighbour and friend.
This was a birdbath but now I use it as a column to keep the hose off the border
I use Pinterest a lot to gather ideas and Instagram is also a great source of garden inspiration. Do go and have a look.
I would love to hear what others have as their inspiration for their garden.
Do let me know in the comments below…..
Thank you.