When we bought the land, we were very excited by the amount of space we would have.  The size meant that we would be able to do something very special and we had lots of ideas as to what this could be.  To help us put these ideas in to context and to get a better understanding of what could be achieved, we decided to ask our brother in law, Al Nowell to help us.  Al is a qualified Landscape Architect with his own practice, LAAND, based in Duke Studios, Leeds.  He initially sent us some early concept sketches.

 

These ideas developed in to some early proposals, which included designs for the boundaries, the entrance and the garden area. He knew that Tom and I are keen on fairly informal planting ideas and like designs by the Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf.  He likes to chose plants as much for their structure as their colour.  His designs include the High Line in New York and Wisley in the UK. We know that we can do nothing on this scale in the land that we have, but the concepts behind these ideas are something that we are very keen on.

 

 

He early designs were based on discussions that we’d had together but before he had been able to do a site visit.