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Where do you find design ideas?

bédébédé Posts: 3,095
edited May 2023 in Plants
Probably not show gardens.  And not Gardeners' World, Titmarsh or Dimmock.

I started with a Roy Brooks book and his garden in Sussex.  But little cameos I came across in the wild and gardens open, including RHS, NT and othe public gardens.  Wistmans Wood was a significiant influence and other damp ferny woods in the West of the UK.  Meadows of cowslips, and fritillaries, and the mixed meadows of the Yorkshire Dales.

Does anyone try to emulate a heather moor these days?
 location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
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  • B3B3 Posts: 27,505
    I can appreciate a designed garden but I prefer higgldey- piggledy in mine. Is that a design? I doubt it.😊
    In London. Keen but lazy.
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    What I have learnt, is that forum readers are not very interested in design.  So be it.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • floraliesfloralies Posts: 2,718
    In my head.
  • Butterfly66Butterfly66 Posts: 970
    I’m very interested in design and have spent many a hour reading and sometimes just enjoying the pictures in my piles of books and magazines (English Garden and Gardens Illustrated not GW). 

    Books which started me off were those by John Brookes and an old readers digest book Creative Planting. 

    I think I have picked up ideas from Chelsea, but I couldn’t point to anything specific in my own garden. Mmm having just typed that, I have got a corten steel bowl as a simple plain water feature which I expect was probably an idea first seen in a show garden. I don’t use the black water dye though - tried it and the reflections were fabulous for about 5 minutes until pollen, petals etc made the surface look dusty. When ‘clean’ OH said it looked like a pool of oil or a witches cauldron 😂
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
  • LG_LG_ Posts: 4,360
    edited May 2023
    Definitely show gardens (still ruminating on Sarah Price's and will be for some time) but also GW - a short piece Joe Swift did several years ago inspired my current garden layout - I then found Tim Newbury books really useful for making it mine. Beth Chatto, Wisley, Dixter, other posters on here (but following them on Instagram), Dan Pearson. Visiting Wistman's Wood about 30 years ago was a stand out life experience, but not easily translatable in design terms to suburban South London. Not sure if I'd want to try - too dry here. 

    But you're right, not interested in design at all... unless you count studying it, of course.
    'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
    - Cicero
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Not being interested in the subject is only one of  many possible reasons why some folk have not responded to the question. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • alfharris8alfharris8 Posts: 513
    I find looking at photos online then using an app like Pinterest to collate things that you are drawn to helps.
    You tend to find a pattern of what you find appealing 
    Athough you then need to research (or ask some of the very clever folks on here) what may or may not work for your particular situation. 
  • Slow-wormSlow-worm Posts: 1,630
    edited May 2023
    I admire design, especially of people like Brown, but there are loads of tiny spaces and everything in between which are fantastic and awe inspiring. 
    Personally, if at all, my designs are loose. I prefer to see how things shape up, and adapt as I go - it works well for me. My entire life's been like that really. 


  • Jenny_AsterJenny_Aster Posts: 945
    I'm another one for Instagram, loads of ideas about anything on there. You can build your own pages, like a 'mood board' from different ideas on the internet. 

    Sorry but I don't rate a grand scheme, much prefer to have a garden, bit like my home to reflect my personality. Scary I know  :#
    Trying to be the person my dog thinks I am! 

    Cambridgeshire/Norfolk border.
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    Having studied architectural, interior and exhibition design for six years and been professionally active in those areas most of my working life before retiring, then taken up gardening where I research hundreds of sources for design and planting inspiration.. nope, not interested in design at all.
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
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