Statement Yellow Glass Vase | Frida Kahlo Print | Velvet Mirror

1. Forget the Rules

Be creative and don’t worry about rules – rules are made to be broken aren’t they? If you want a riotous bunch of clashing colours go for it! If you prefer a few twigs and leaves then so be it. We all have different tastes and different ideas on what is visually appealing so don’t worry about what others think. Flowers and foliage are to be enjoyed and bring happiness not create stress. Experimenting with different vases and containers helps you to understand which shapes suit best. If the proportion doesn’t look right try adding foliage that gives height and or width. Think about contrast – a simple bowl of tulips interspersed with twigs makes a stunning arrangement.

Etched Green Glass Vase

2. Condition your Flowers

Condition your flowers and foliage by trimming the stems and letting them stand in a big bucket of water for a few hours for a good drink. Add flower food to the water or a dash of bleach and change the water regularly. Remove all leaves below the water line otherwise they will rot and smell. Some flowers like hellebores need the ends of their stems dunked in boiling water for a minute before going in a vase. If necessary use florist foam, marbles or a flower frog to keep flowers in place. Another good way to hold flowers in place in a wide vase is to crisscross washi tape or sellotape across the top in a grid and slot the flowers into it.

Zebra Vases

3. Add Foliage

Add foliage for contrasting texture and colour. Think about the colours and shapes of the flowers and how you can enhance them with added foliage. Ivy is great for trailing down the side of a vase and to add width, and ferns and grasses are wonderful for adding height and some spikiness. Foliage such as fennel and alchemilla mollis makes a fabulous frothy arrangement.

Faux Pink Protea Stem

4. Mix in faux

A great way to add lusciousness to a vase of flowers is to mix in some faux flowers and foliage. By doing this you get a really luxurious bouquet without spending a fortune. A bunch of flowers can be turned into something really special and eye catching with the addition of a few faux pink protea stems or faux blush eucalyptus sprays, and they last for years.

Looking at images on pinterest is a great way to see what it is you like and try copying it so that you get a feel for what works for you. Even a few flower heads in a selection of small containers grouped together makes for an interesting display and is quick to do. Above all enjoy and experiment!

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Zebra Vase | Golden Wing Bookends | Ulysses Butterfly Taxidermy Art

He is such a handsome chap this zebra vase, that he doesn’t even need flowers to make a statement, but he certainly creates real wow factor when filled with floral loveliness. It’s fun to play about with different types of arrangement to see what suits, and in this case the zebra vase lends itself to so many styles and almost anything goes. To give you some tips for flower arranging in the zebra vase we have styled him in 3 different ways so you can see how different he looks.

Super Easy

This small bunch of dainty chrysanthemum heads makes the zebra look like he is wearing a vibrant hat – or a dashing haircut- and it’s so cheap and easy to do with any small flower heads. It takes minutes to cut the heads and pop them in the vase, just enough to make a compact covering of the opening.

Intermediate 

He is perfect for a simple bunch of tulips, which are literally just plonked in the vase – we’ve added some fronds of greenery for extra height but they aren’t necessary – we just had them to hand so added some. As the tulips continue to grow when in water they droop beautifully over the sides of the vase.

Pro

For a real show stunner of an arrangement fill the zebra vase with an assortment of flowers of varying heights, and fill around with lots of greenery to give more height and depth. Because the vase only has a small opening it doesn’t take a lot to fill it and create a really lovely display. Some of the foliage in this arrangement is faux which is a great way to fill out your displays without buying fresh all the time.

What do you think to the different arrangements? Do you have a favourite? I really like the dainty chrysanthemums as he looks so cute!

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui & Amelia Brooks

1. Incorporate Symmetry

Garden Design & Image Credit: The Garden Builders

This is one eye catching front garden, and so sexy! Go for all evergreen in a very symmetrical design for a contemporary look that’s low maintenance and green all year round – what more could you want from a front garden? The geometric shapes of the paving and planted areas echo the tile and window shapes for perfect harmony in design. Using box topiary gives all round colour and visual interest, and the grass in the centre is possibly fake, which is becoming a viable option now with the exciting new developments in fake turf. The design is so simple but that’s the beauty of it, uncluttered geometry.

2. Create an Outdoor Room

Image Credit: Layer Home

A great look if you want to make your garden an extension of your home, especially if you aren’t green fingered – and don’t want the job of looking after plants. The mirrors and pictures on the walls in this picture don’t look like they are very outdoor friendly but there’s loads of options out there that are weather proof, in fact, we are launching some gorgeous outdoor mirrors for spring. I love the idea of a room divider, planted with box balls, that separates the dining from the lounging area. It’s a really good way to add interest and break up the space in a small courtyard garden.

3. Create a Private Oasis

Garden Design & Image Credit: Jenny Bloom Garden Design

This is a fabulous way to add height and drama to what is essentially a small courtyard garden, and the sense of privacy gives a feeling of a secluded oasis. The concrete slabs are used to make a retaining wall that is deep enough to be planted at head height giving the garden a real sense of enclosure and privacy. Imagine how boring it would be if it was all on one level with just a stark backdrop. Another great idea is to use contrasting fencing materials to give character and contrast to the hard landscaping.

4. Incorporate Raised Planting Beds

Image Credit: Boscolo Interior Design

All the hard landscaping in this garden creates a very modern, minimalist look, but interest is added by varying the heights and shapes of the raised planting beds to create a sense of movement. By raising the planting area, you get a feeling of being in amongst the plants, and there is lots of places to perch with a glass of wine while you admire the flowers, and of course maintenance is a lot easier at that height. Another good idea is the bench that runs along the back wall for yet more seating.

5. Create Impact with Tiling

Garden Design & Image Credit: The Garden Builders

And the last garden to drool over has a patterned tiled area beneath the coffee table that looks like a rug, even down to a border of contrasting tiles and then a border planted with succulents. What a cool idea – creating a border of living plants!   It’s a great way to bring impact to a small space and daw the eye to the lounging area. The raised planting beds add height and create visual interest, again without too much maintenance needed.

If you’re looking for more inspiration for a small urban garden the ‘Modern Gardens’ magazine has plenty of design ideas, with plenty of planting tips as well. As regular readers of this blog will know I’m passionate about my garden, and whilst there are more ideas to steal from my garden, labour saving it aint!   All these courtyards have one thing in common though – effortlessly chic but easy to maintain. I can imagine sitting there with a sundowner, enjoying the sun, no weeding, and certainly no grass mowing – what more could you want?

Jacqui x

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My garden was built from scratch 3 years ago and is now maturing and looking luscious so thought you might like to see some photos of its progression, although I need to take more this summer to see the current changes.   A garden should fit in with your lifestyle and your capabilities so plan out how you want to use the space, how much gardening you want to do and how much entertaining you want to do in the garden. My 6 top tips when redesigning your garden are:

September 2012

1. Position your terrace (or terraces) to make the most of the sunshine for alfresco dining. Check out where the sun rises and sets on your garden. Mine faces south east so I get sun from early morning until about 4pm and then it starts to move around the side of the houses so in the evening I only get sun at the bottom of the garden.   To be able to eat outside in the sunshine I have two terraces, both with a table and chairs – one by the back door and one near the bottom of the garden so I can catch the sun at any time. I don’t think there is anything more distressing than eating in the shade in this cold climate.

September 2012

2. Check out your fences! I made this mistake as I knew one of my fences wasn’t very sturdy but ignored it, to my cost. I now have to have a new fence put in and it will create havoc in my flower beds and will have to be replanted with climbing plants that were starting to establish.

January 2013

3. Add height to your garden – a flat garden is a boring garden. Trees, pergolas, arches and trellis all add height and create more interest. If you are going to plant trees it’s essential to do the research and plant appropriate sized trees, my son the tree surgeon spends a lot of his life cutting down overgrown trees due to their unsuitability for their allotted space. Another pet hate of his is ivy, which I have to say I love for its ability to clothe walls and fences which makes for a gorgeous green backdrop, but again, choose wisely. There are so many varieties available online and if they are kept in check there is nothing more attractive than a green wall. A mistake I made was to plant two climbing roses over an arch that grew too big for the space so we could hardly get through the middle of the arch (and they had wicked thorns) so they have just come out and I will have a small climbing rose and a clematis to flower through it instead.

May 2013

4. I think every garden should have a summerhouse, not only because it’s more available space to grow climbers up but for their peaceful retreat feeling. My aunt and uncle play scrabble and drink wine in theirs in the evening sunshine – isn’t that lovely? Again think about positioning for the sunshine, there is nothing worse than a dismal shady summerhouse.

May 2014

5. Plant plenty of evergreens otherwise your garden is going to look desolate in the winter. A good back drop of carefully chosen evergreens gives a green structure to a garden all year round and allows perennials and annuals to glow against the green. I have a boxwood parterre that has finally grown enough to look stunning planted with tulips in the spring and annuals in the summer and it’s still a joy in the winter.

May 2014

6. Research your terrace materials carefully. Mine is Chinese sandstone (I think) and looked stunning for a couple of years with a golden glow to it but is now so porous that everything marks it – even a muddy footprint can’t be washed off! Consequently I have to pressure wash it several times a year which is only increasing the problem and still I can’t remove algae from the shady areas. So the moral of the story is buy the best you can afford but make sure it’s durable. And to me decking is a no go as it has a short life span, is slippery in the wet and needs constant recoating of varnish or paint.

August 2014

August 2014

Well that concludes my little lecture for the day. I have plenty more to say, particularly about plants, but I’ve been told not to write another essay so I hope you enjoy the photos of my garden progression and I will post more later in the summer as it’s maturing.

Otherwise, if your garden is already a bit more mature and you’re looking to furnish it, do have a browse of our garden decor and furniture.

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks

Gardening has changed dramatically over the last few years – it used to be the case that you were either a gardener and obsessed with plants, or you weren’t and just had a lawn with a few shrubs, but now we want a garden that we can use as an outdoor room and that we can style accordingly without having to become the next Percy Thrower! My garden is very labour intensive and that is my choice because I would actually like to be the next Percy Thrower, well a female version of, of course, but for those of you who want to actually have time to sit in your garden as well as enjoy it as an extension of your home then this is the mag for you. It’s full of inspirational design and style ideas for creating an interesting outdoor room without being overly horticultural.

This month’s edition (April 2016) has a feature on how to set up a garden cinema for a fab summer party, everything you need to know about tulips (well not quite everything but enough to make a great display, did you know you can eat tulip petals? I didn’t), how to create a garden kitchen for alfresco parties, planting a purple corner that bees will love and lots more style ideas to create a garden to be proud of.

You can subscribe here: Modern Gardens. Needless to say, I’ve already subscribed.

So what you think?  Is it just the garden mag you’ve been looking for?

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui & Amelia Brooks

This old white ironwork table is a favourite find. It was in the garden of a house my son bought to renovate and just had to come home with me and it’s always covered in plants. I do love a spider plant – virtually indestructible – and this one looks very regal in a beautiful old brass pot from the brass factory in Hong Kong. Surrounded by other green beauties I can almost imagine I am in the orangery!

A small selection of succulents potted up together in shallow bowls. I like to plant different ones together to show off their architectural qualities. Seen from above the interesting shapes echo the patterns in the ironwork table and the gorgeous greens and reds make a lovely soft contrast to the white.

I love this chair – my sister was given it from a house clearance and passed it on to me. It’s so dainty it takes up little room and is great to pull out when there is an extra mouth to feed at the kitchen table. Painted black with the red striped linen covering it is the perfect size for a few succulents and the aloe vera is wonderful to for dabbing on my frequent cooker burns!

Take a look at our other Urban Jungle blog posts for more ideas on styling with house plants and until next month, happy green weekend.

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui and Amelia Brooks

‘Urban Jungle Bloggers- Plant Gang’ written by Jacqui Brooks

All the paintwork in my hallway is black so these shelves make a striking backdrop for some of my vintage china collection.

I particularly love combinations of red and green, probably because it reminds me of the garden, add some off white (the colour of my gravel paths) and a few houseplants, and I feel I have brought the outdoors in. Ah warmth and sunshine indoors and out – what bliss!

Which way do you like best?

Jacqui x

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‘Spring Shelfies’ written by Jacqui Brooks

Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui Brooks

1. Light levels

Planting position is the key to a happy plant. A sun lover in the shade is going to be very sad and become sickly so check the sun levels in the different parts of your garden before purchasing plants. Shade and sun lovers apart there are many plants that fall in the middle that will tolerate part sun/part shade with the accepted measurement of this to be about 4 to 5 hours of sun a day but there is a big difference between early morning sun and hot afternoon sun. In essence this is not an exact science and some experimentation will be necessary.

My Garden

2. Overcrowding

Overcrowded plants are sad plants and you are cramping their style! This is an easy mistake to make and the temptation is always to fill up the available space when planting but 2 years down the line you will be digging plants up because they have outgrown their allotted space. Easy enough to do with small plants but a big job with trees and large shrubs, as I can testify to! Fill up the spaces with annuals for the first year if you can’t bear to look at bare soil.

3. Soil structure

Get to know your soil. Is it acid or alkaline, is it heavy clay or sandy soil, or are you really lucky and have the perfect structure of soil? There is a whole science to this but to keep it simple don’t put a free draining sun lover like lavender into heavy clay soil! There are areas of my garden where the soil is heavier and I have put a layer of grit under the plants when planting to help the drainage so the roots are not sitting in wet clay. My soil is alkaline so the couple of azaleas I have are planted in pots in ericaceous compost. You can dig out a much bigger hole in the ground and fill with ericaceous compost (and feed with ericaceous plant food) if you desperately want an acid lover in alkaline soil and I have been successful with this in the past.

My Garden

4. The dotty look

Plant in groups of three or five to give strong clumps of each variety otherwise it looks very dotty with lots of single specimens spaced about. Plants in 9cm pots are a lot cheaper than the standard 2 litre pot but will take another year to catch up. Repeat clumps of certain plants throughout the borders helps to give some continuity. Grasses are good for this as they give a restful green sway amongst brighter specimens.

5. Plant structure

Gardens need contrast, just like interiors. Think about adding height with tall shrubs, trees and obelisks. Too many plants of the same height are boring too look at. The eye needs to travel up and down and around to make a view interesting and also each plant group stands out more then. Think about the contrast of rounded shrubs against more open and branching shrubs and add plants like verbena bonariensis between to give height and summer interest. Lots of foliage plants are essential for long term structure with perennials between for seasonal interest.

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks

‘5 Common Mistakes made in the Garden & How to Overcome Them’ written by Jacqui Brooks

February’s theme is hanging planters which are a big trend right now but I remember their last outing in the 70’s – mainly hanging by means of macramé holders. Now I did google macramé but it looked like some form of slow torture, involving a lot of fiddly knots, (no, not Fifty shades of Grey) so decided to give that a miss and think of other ways around hanging my lovely greenery.

Copper and brass are a great contrast to greenery and as warm metals are trending I thought I would use my fab copper colander as a hanging planter, and my goodness was it easy to do, no Girl Guide knots for me!

Here’s what you’ll need:

> A length of brass chain (length will depend on where you’d like the colander to hang, but just bear in mind you’ll need to use at least 2 or 3 lengths of chain so that it sits straight!

> A large hook to hang the chain from the ceiling

> A pack of three small hooks to attach the chain to the colander (I bought all of the above from a local hardware store)

> A colander

> Moss (I tend to buy mine on Amazon)

> Soil

> As well as plants (of course!)

Here’s how to make the hanging planter:

1.  Line the colander with moss.

2.  Cut up a bin bag (or a purpose made hanging basket liner) and a place this over the top of the moss.  Doing this will prevent the soil from spilling out of the colander.  Then puncture holes in the bin bag to allow the water to drain away.

3.  Fill the colander with soil.

4.  Then for the fun bit of planting the colander with gorgeous plants!  I used three small ivies, a white hyacinth bulb, a frothy fern and a small white hellebore for a lovely spring planter.  I also added some more moss around the plants to cover the soil.

5.  I then cut the chain into three equal lengths.  If you don’t have wire cutters, ask them to do this for you in the shop where you bought the chain.

6.  Placed the 3 smaller hooks into the colander and slotted one piece of chain onto each hook.  I then attached my ceiling hook and hung it up!

Now, I also should mention that the attachment of the ceiling hook will depend on your ceiling and whether there’s a joist that you can attach it to.  There’s a really handy how to here.  But if you’re not sure, check with an expert as to the best way to do this.

When watering, either take down and nest the colander in either the sink, or a bucket until the water has drained away.  Or water in-situ, but place a large bowl or bucket underneath until the water stops dripping.  OR for a really hassle free shot of greenery, you could always opt for faux plants instead!

And what a beauty she is hanging above another gorgeous fern and a sprig of blossom, and a lovely way to bring spring indoors and celebrate the passing of winter. I’m looking forward to seeing everybody else’s creations for this months’ Urban Jungle Bloggers theme and I am sure there will be a lot of impressive macramé from you talented bloggers out there.

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui and Amelia Brooks

Cut flowers

I think tulips have to be my favourite flower, particularly parrot tulips, as they make me think spring is on its way and warmth and sunshine!   And what could be more stunning than the combination of these orange and green striped parrot tulips and a black pot?

Faux flowers

Faux flowers are so on trend at the moment so there is lots of choice about, it’s just a matter of being discerning. This combo of a single faux orchid stem looks fab mixed in with a stem of real contorted hazel and some fresh moss. I used a block of dried flower oasis in the bottom to support the stems and padded the rest of the vase with scrunched up plastic bags for the moss to sit on.

Pot plant

I love the sculptural shape of aloe vera and it doesn’t have the nasty spikes like cactus. I used polystyrene in the bottom of the pot as drainage space, and also to cut down on weight, and then planted the aloe vera in some potting compost with moss to cover the soil.

I could go on and on but Amelia stopped me – she said three was enough for anybody and I was making a mess haha – spoilsport. Which way do you like best?

Jacqui x

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Photography: Amelia Brooks/ Styling: Jacqui and Amelia Brooks