Garden Visit

This June we visited Tom Stuart Smith's garden as part of the National Garden Scheme.

New additions since my last visit - notably the ‘Serge Hill Project’ including a new ‘plant library’ serving as a great educational resource for anyone interested in plants and planting design. It is set out in a grid system with more than 1200 different varieties of mainly herbaceous plants, and serves as a community of plants that can be walked through and studied from all angles.

TSS has also moved his studio out of London to Serge Hill. This 'Dairy Studio’ has a charming new informal garden for a quiet 5 minutes out of the office. Featuring Belgian clay pavers, a picnic table and a planting matrix featuring Seslaria Autumnal, Thalictrums etc, it is an elegant example of a small useable garden space if we could only let go of the idea of a lawn (which as our climate heats is impractical/expensive).

Within the main garden, personal favourites include the Barn Garden and the Buxus topiary forms and Crataegus which act like an anchoring gateway to the meadow beyond.

Worth a visit next Father’s Day!

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Visit Tom Stuart Smith

Brick Pool House

A grassy mound conceals this brick pool house, which architecture studio Knox Bhavan has designed to be "virtually invisible" within the grounds of a Georgian home in Kent.

Responding to the client's request for an unobtrusive structure, Knox Bhavan took advantage of an existing slope and retaining wall on the site to help blend the building into a wider landscape redesign by Lloyd Blunt.

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Quick Vegan Supper

Takes 30 mins to prepare.  
Keeps well for lunch next day eaten cold. 

(Do sweet potatoes first so that while they are roasting you can do the other bits.)

Cook mixed quinoa grains according to packet instructions with a teaspoon of Marigold Bouillon (for flavour).

Drain and set aside.

Chop some sweet potatoes into bite sized chunks and roast in olive oil with a dash of maple syrup, some chill flakes and some miso paste (mix it all together with hands before roasting).  Should take about 20-25 mins in 180/200 oven. Stir or shake half way through cooking time. I put a full bulb of garlic in the tray too so that I can squeeze the roasted cloves into the mixed dish.

Fry some firm tofu (cut into bite sized chunks and well drained) in sesame oil with minced ginger/garlic, chilli flakes and soy sauce until golden (to make it more crispy dip in cornflour before frying but I couldn’t be bothered)

De-frost edamame beans by pouring boiling water over. 

Chop some fresh coriander. 

Once everything’s cooked let it cool slightly then combine and mix attractively, pour some olive oil & lime juice over the top and serve with a tahini and vegan yoghurt dressing and toasted pumpkin seeds for added protein. 

Dressing
Vegan yoghurt
Tahini
Lime juice
Maple syrup
Soy sauce
Chili flakes

Add water if its too thick … keeps in the fridge for 3 days. 

Greener Living | Design Stories

NHK World visit gardener and green director Saito Taichi on his plant farm where they experience his designs that bring people and nature closer together, and explore their potential.

Our relationship with nature has been changed by our experiences during the pandemic. Many feel a strong desire to bring the natural world into their everyday lives. Interest has risen in designs that are more than shallow ornamentation, offering coexistence with nature, and conservation of our environment. Such designs shape our living spaces and architecture.

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Japanese Garden

What makes a Japanese garden?

Our design proposal occupied a small courtyard space between house and car port, separate from the main garden. This become a vignette of its own to be enjoyed in passing, with the option of pausing on a bench or stone to enjoy the water.

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