VaRa Garden Design

VaRa Garden Design Award-winning garden design duo creating beautiful outdoor spaces.

We are so proud to be involved with this exciting new Greenfingers Charity garden at Acorns Children's Hospice!!
22/11/2024

We are so proud to be involved with this exciting new Greenfingers Charity garden at Acorns Children's Hospice!!

We’re really looking forward to working once again with Vanessa and Rachel of VaRa Garden Design, who together with Paul Taylor Landscapes, will be helping us to bring ‘The Centred Garden’ to life at Acorns Children's Hospice at the start of 2025.

Having previously created the 60th Greenfingers garden at Rainbows Hospice for Children and Young People - which won the HTA News Benevolent Fund Award for ‘the project that made the most impact on a community’ - the VaRa team will be using their experience to create yet another vital garden space for children and families to enjoy.

The plan is to transform the central outside space at Acorns to include planting to create interest, play and sensory equipment, coloured shade outside each bedroom suite – and much more.

With the Garden set to be on show from every aspect of the hospice building, we’re excited for VaRa’s design to take centre stage... 💚

04/07/2024
09/08/2023
We’re thrilled to be working with Greenfingers Charity again on Acorns Children's Hospice garden!
06/08/2023

We’re thrilled to be working with Greenfingers Charity again on Acorns Children's Hospice garden!

And suddenly it’s a wrap on RHS Chelsea Flower Show for this year!!We’ve had a blast, worked hard and thoroughly enjoyed...
01/06/2022

And suddenly it’s a wrap on RHS Chelsea Flower Show for this year!!

We’ve had a blast, worked hard and thoroughly enjoyed being part of our industry’s ‘greatest show’.

Before we hang up our steel toe capped boots, we thought we’d celebrate with a few posts sharing our favourite plants, our favourite gardens and our favourite people…..

……so first up, our favourite plants from our own showground planting;

1. Digitalis ‘Foxlight Mix’ brought a light spike to the shady borders
2. Trollius ‘Golden Queen’ zinged in the sunshine by the RHS Hub
3. Achillea ‘The Beacon’ popped through the grasses
4. Achillea ‘Sassy Summer Lemon’ strutted it’s stuff on the dance floor by the Bandstand
5. Paeonia ‘Shirley Temple’ proved very popular on the stage
6. Epimedium ‘Purple Pixie’ with its delicate, nodding flowers tucked itself away under the mimosa tree
7. Phosocarpus ‘Diablo’ revealed its pale pink flowers just in time by the Serpentine Corner
8. Polystichum polyblepharum showed off its arching fronds in the reflection of sculptures

Thank you to and Daisy Roots for your fabulous plants, that everyone has so enjoyed this past week!!

After all the razzmatazz of Press Day, it was great to have the doors finally open to the public at the Chelsea Flower S...
26/05/2022

After all the razzmatazz of Press Day, it was great to have the doors finally open to the public at the Chelsea Flower Show!!

This year we also decorated the bandstand with a riot of colour and froth with;
Achillea ‘Sassy Summer Lemon’
Peony ‘Dancing Butterfly’
Selene ‘Rollies Favorite’
Salvia ‘Caradonna Pink’
And a specially bred Verbena called ‘Peter Seabrook’ in honour of the late British gardening writer & television broadcaster who passed away earlier this year

Can’t wait to see the fabulous bands take to the stage this Show!

If you go down to the woods today.....how many mirrored sculptures can you find?!Collaborating with artist Lee Borthwick...
25/05/2022

If you go down to the woods today.....how many mirrored sculptures can you find?!

Collaborating with artist Lee Borthwick, her ethereal pieces of art are bringing an other-worldly quality to our woodland shady planting at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year. One moment they appear like pools of water, and the next they become windows into secret gardens.
Here, one of the sculptures is nestled amongst Dicentra 'Spring Magic', Blechnum spicant and Geranium macc. 'Ingwersen’s Variety', beautifully reflecting the arching Cornus controversa and nodding Aquilegia 'White Star'.

If you're at the Show, make sure you hunt them out on your way past Parker & Coop and Cashmere Caveman WildKitchen to Raymond Blanc's Jardin Blanc and the fabulous RHS House Plant Studios and shady Sanctuary Gardens!

photo


.duval

Final touches to our RHS Chelsea planting today! Beautiful artwork by reflects lush foliage, flowers and tree canopies....
21/05/2022

Final touches to our RHS Chelsea planting today! Beautiful artwork by reflects lush foliage, flowers and tree canopies. Her work is eye catching and provides an ever-changing view of these shady natural spaces.


We’re one week through our RHS Chelsea Flower Show preparations and are really pleased with how it’s progressing.We’ve n...
16/05/2022

We’re one week through our RHS Chelsea Flower Show preparations and are really pleased with how it’s progressing.

We’ve nearly finished planting the shady borders with a light colour palette colours including textural ferns and grasses. Our favourite so far is Aquilegia ‘White Barlow’.

WonderWood Willow have woven some more natural screens for us, Lee Borthwick has installed her beautiful sculptures and our fabulous team of planters and helpers have done a brilliant job.

All ready for tomorrow’s delivery of plants for the sunny showground!!

Watch this space…….

29/04/2022

Loved this project!

25/04/2022
“Every time I come down in the morning and look out, no matter what the season, the garden makes us glow with happiness ...
25/04/2022

“Every time I come down in the morning and look out, no matter what the season, the garden makes us glow with happiness for what you have done for us!"

It's always a pleasure to create wonderful spaces for our clients, but when we receive messages like this, it makes our hearts sing!

Our clients had designed their home with large picture windows and doors to make the most of the fabulous countryside.

So we designed their garden to allow them to enjoy the view, as well as to bring planting closer to the house. There is something to enjoy and look forward to every season with blossom, berries, stems and flowers….

If you didn't catch this week's episode of Love Your Garden, make sure you take a peak. One of our gardens was featured ...
08/04/2022

If you didn't catch this week's episode of Love Your Garden, make sure you take a peak. One of our gardens was featured on the show!

Alan Titchmarsh paid us a visit to get some inspiration for the garden he was designing for his client in Leicester.

Our design pulls together colourful and textural hard and soft landscaping with corten sculpture, vibrant planting and striking furniture.

It was such a pleasure meeting Alan and chatting gardens. Thanks again to our wonderful clients for opening their garden gate to us all!

https://www.itv.com/hub/love-your-garden/2a1173a0091



This week's visit to the Royal Hospital grounds got us all excited about our collaboration with - a fantastic installat...
03/03/2022

This week's visit to the Royal Hospital grounds got us all excited about our collaboration with - a fantastic installation artist and sculptor - for this year's Chelsea Flower Show.
She will be enhancing our new planting scheme with beautifully reflective, textural pieces.
We are already enjoying playing and planning together! Watch this space....




01/03/2022

Lovely to see one of our designs in this month’s Dream Garden Magazine, available in all the best places 😉

Such a fabulous project to work on!!

So chuffed to be back at Chelsea! We’ve been invited by the RHS for the 2nd year in a row to design and implement the sh...
02/02/2022

So chuffed to be back at Chelsea!
We’ve been invited by the RHS for the 2nd year in a row to design and implement the show ground planting
Today’s site visit has got the creative juices flowing again and we can’t wait to get stuck back in

This week’s highlight was definitely our visit to RHS Garden Wisley - we picked a glorious day!Loved taking a day out of...
13/01/2022

This week’s highlight was definitely our visit to RHS Garden Wisley - we picked a glorious day!

Loved taking a day out of the studio to soak in the majestic views, inspiring design and all of the winter structure and interest. It’s always so interesting to visit gardens in the winter, when you can really appreciate the bare bones of a space.





Great to be out there in some sunshine at last!!
07/01/2022

Great to be out there in some sunshine at last!!

We’ve had a fantastic first week back......visiting project builds to check on progress, choosing fab plants and talking to new clients.
And it’s been lovely to see what’s bringing colour and scent to the garden at this time of year, particularly;

* Helleborus ‘Anna’s Red’
* Chimonanthus praecox
* Hamamelis x intermedia
* Epimedium

It’s certainly been fresh outside (-3 degrees yesterday when we set off 🥶) but the sun has made a very welcome appearance too!

Let’s see what next week has in store....

Address

Hertfordshire

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when VaRa Garden Design posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to VaRa Garden Design:

Videos

Lovely to see one of our designs in this month’s Dream Garden Magazine, available in all the best places 😉 Such a fabulous project to work on!!

Before the year is up, we wanted to say thank you and Merry Christmas x

Had to share this lovely video taken by Europlants UK Ltd of the shady borders we created RHS - Royal Horticultural Society #chelseaflowershow Thank you to Europlants for supplying all of the beautiful plants, to Wonderwood Willow for creating the stunning woven willow, and to our fabulous team of volunteers who picked over, carried, wheeled, sweated and planted with us!!!

VaRa Garden Design highlights from 2020
VaRa Garden Design highlights from 2020

So as 2020 comes to an end, and we close the VaRa studio doors until January, we thought we'd take a look back over the year and celebrate all the things we managed to see and do, despite all of the restrictions. We really do count ourselves lucky to work in our industry, where we can be outdoors, helping people develop their gardens and make the most of whatever nature throws at us! Take a look at some of our highlights.......a lot of which have come from our 'Getting the Green Light' posts we made during the 70 days of lockdown earlier this year. Thank you everyone for your support this year in particular. Wishing you all a very happy and healthy 2021! ###

Lockdown 2.0 may not have been quite as quiet as the first time around which seemed to enable us to hear nature at full voice in all its glory! Nonetheless, sound in the garden is such a lovely dimension to enhance. Adding things like moving water, immediately focuses you within an outdoor space, or including planting to invite wildlife, and consequently birdsong in. Catching the wind by increasing softer and taller textural planting brings movement and therefore sound to the garden. Grasses are a really easy way to ‘add sound and movement’ to a garden. Great places to see and ‘hear’ this are #knollgardens in Dorset and #cambridgebotanicalgardens. Here’s a short clip to inspire! Get outside in bright moments on these crisp autumn days even when the days are at their shortest. Until next time…….(hopefully the last one of Lockdown 2.0!)

A Celebration of Alliums
A Celebration of Alliums

Our lovely client Keith has put this video together, celebrating the Alliums in his garden that we designed and planted over 3 years ago. Thank you Keith!

What a great day at Chelsea! Fabulous gardens and lovely people - feeling very happy to be part of this brilliant industry. Here are some of our best bits.....

Just finished our latest design - a terraced garden with contemporary hard landscaping, a sleek water feature and year-round planting scheme with seasonal bursts to look forward to. Really enjoyed working with Pete and the rest of the Rococo team. And an absolute pleasure to create a garden for such lovely and appreciative clients!

Shortcuts

Share