Chris and I enjoyed a fascinating evening at the Grand Hotel Brighton last night . We were invited by Guseppi from Lagoon pools after our designs were entered for the national swimming pool awards , an annual event hosted by SPATA (swimming pool and allied  trade assosciation) . Guseppi built the pool from our design , and we went on to complete a considerable volume of landscaping ,including limestone patio , herbaceous beds, new lawn water feature, irrigation system etc. More and more clients are comming to us wanting a more...

We have been working for the past 7 years alongside Southampton council and a major house builder on the former Pirelli tyre factory in Eastleigh . There are over 500 new houses flats and shopping areas which we have landscaped , turfed , planted and maintained . The final part was the erection of a copper and steel artwork which celebrated the people of Eastleigh, their wartime exploits and subsequent achievements . Its a project we have been pruod to be involved with and which to date we are currently more...

We have been invited back to do further works on a quite breathtaking estate overlooking Chichester W sussex . It was a good opportunity to have a look at works that we did approximately 5 years ago . For such a windswept inhospitable site , the percentage losses were minimal, and it was a joy to walk through the maturing garden a few weeks ago with my camera .

The wild flower meadow has worked a treat with the wonderful juxtaposition between the wild flowers and grasses and the neatly more...

We have taken on a number of design and build comissions in the last twelve months . This particular property has recently come on the market at a cool 7 Million , and judging by the number of people viewing it probably will be sold by the time you read this .

Graduate were involved at the planning stage and put together a design based on a sweeping driveway , ornate gates, entering a courtyard with associated plantings . The northerly aspect of the front lent itself to evergreen hardy more...

Here at Graduate Landscapes we are thrilled to announce that we have been awarded a coveted Gold award as well as Best Conceptual Garden at RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show this week!

Our garden, designed by Dan Lobb, consultant  landscape designer for Graduate Landscapes, is a subterranean world of mushrooms, moss and lichen, revealed only when peering in through rusted steel periscopes.

Landscape Obscured is an ingenious concept that we designed to comment on the issue of the effect of human consumption on the environment, by focussing attention on the more...

As Hampton Court Palace Flower Show 2011 fast approaches, we thought we'd give you a little taste of what's in store...We should know, we're exhibiting!

Those who frequent the annual Hampton Court Palace Flower Show will be aware that the conceptual gardens category is usually original, innovative and thought provoking. The exhibits are supposed to stretch and challenge peoples' perceptions of what makes a garden, and it is therefore fair to say that this year's Graduate Landscapes garden fits the bill perfectly.

‘Landscape Obscured' is the intriguing title of the more...

Graduate Landscapes are getting excited after the recent acceptance of our garden design into the Hampton Court Flower Show 2011.

If you were lucky enough to visit Hampton Court Flower Show 2010 then the emphasis on growing your own fruit and veg would not have passed you by and with growing environmental concern added to the current economic climate the trend will surely make its return in this year’s show. Well we at Graduate Landscapes have taken the idea more...

With a few sore heads from the Christmas break, supervisers, designers and myself embarked on a two day Health and Safety Course at Old Thornes in Liphook on the first day back to work! As this is a necessity nowadays we always keep up to date with our certifications for Health and Safety as it is an integral part of running the business. This included lectures on site safety, wearing protective clothing, videos on how to avoid accidents and an exam on the  last day to see if we had more...

As i previoulsy mentioned i was putting myself out there to give a talk and advice to anyone looking to get into the landscaping industry. Well despite the cold weather this still went ahead and i was pleasantly surprised at how many people turned up. From young kids to older folk we had a broad spectrum of interested parties. I am looking to do this kind of thing more and more as it ties a connection between the people of surrey, our company and the next generation of landscapers. With a vast more...

With the onslaught of the snow you would think that we would have shut up shop and closed until the ground and our staff had well and truly thawed out! This is most certainly not the case and as the weather deteriorates our workload doesn't. Although laying turf and some aspects of hard landscaping can't go ahead through risk of having to go and do it all over again we are still getting contracts that can carry on regardless, not to mention the maintenance and the additional snow removal that comes with the territory! The Alpacas surrounding the offices more...

After our incredible ammonite findings in September of this year we had showed it to a number of interested parties to get an idea of exactly what they were. It turns out these are very rare and should go to the Haslmere museum to show as part of a fossil exhibition. To hand these over to the curator we invited the new headmistress of St Ives school along with the Gavins' daughter, where the ammonites were found, and of course my wonderful daughter. It was a bit of a struggle to fit everyone to the more...

On the 9th of November i will be at Bohunt school offering my advice on any aspects of landscaping that the good people of the school, or anyone else for that matter might have. The aim of me doing this evening is to offer my advice from over 20 years in the business to the students and to anyone looking to learn more about what the industry has to offer. I'm very passionate about what i do and believe there are so many opportunties and different avenues out there that if people knew where to look we could have a whole more...

Some of you may know that this year we bought a couple of lady Alpacas not knowing that one had been ravaged by a male on the loose! These are such great pets if you have the space and they're a far cry from the usual domestic pet!  Kids love them but with the size of them they're not the kind of thing you would take into show and tell! However after waking up one sunny summer morning we were amazed to find a new addition to the family! We have no idea more...

As of the 4th of October we've welcomed a new member to the team!  Ben received his spatial design degree from Central St Martins school of art before training at the highly acclaimed Garden Design School at Painshill Park. Ben is a family man and became a dad for the first time 15 months ago. He's incredibly passionate about what he does and seems to be already taking the huge amount of work thats coming in in his stride!  

During a project in Marley Combe Road in Haslemere a few weeks ago we made an amazing find. We were excavating a client's garden to lay the foundations for some terracing when we hit  what we thought was rock but it turned out to be an amazing fossil. We kept digging and found that garden was full of fantastic ammonites, one of them was around a metre across!

Geologically speaking, the fossils shouldn't be there at all so we were amazingly lucky. The staff at Haslemere Museum were quite puzzled more...

Summer is always a busy time for us, and this year we're happy to report it is as busy as ever. As a result we have have extended our fleet to include two new vans. These vans are now on the road, having been sign-written in our own unique style. Each van has an individual picture on the back to showcase our portfolio of completed garden design and build projects, as well as real garden design plans on each side of the van, to give a sense of the level of more...

Graduate Landscapes are thrilled to have been awarded "Most Loved Local Landscape Gardening and Garden Maintenance Firm" by TheBestOf.

Graduate Landscapes managed to beat off stiff competition as TheBestOf's campaign caught the public imagination. More than 30,000 businesses drawn from almost 400 towns and spanning every business type took part in the competition, and success was measured on the number of nominations from happy customers. Graduate Landscape was recommended by 78 people during the 14 days of the competition for its "unbeatable customer service".

Tony commented on the award "I am more...

We are very excited about the success of Susan Summers, a local student who while doing a garden design course at Sparsholt college has been doing voluntary work are our Liphook studio. 

Susan has been shortlisted to the last 6 entrants of The RHS and London 2012 launched The Great British Garden Competition. Tony Richards, Director, said "We are absolutely thrilled for Susan and wish her all the very best in the final stages; we know where our vote will be going!"

If you want to vote for any of the 6 more...

We're thrilled that we have been voted a finalist in the ‘Best Parks and Gardens Project' category by the judges of the Horticulture Week Landscape and Amenity Awards. Working in conjunction with The Terra Firma Consultancy, a highly respected firm of Landscape Architects based in Petersfield, our brief was to restore and create a lasting memorial on behalf of the Leonard Cheshire Foundation, at their former site of Lee Court Selborne, Hampshire.                        

The garden has been created on three levels, the centrepiece being a 5 tonne block of Cornish Granite installed more...

It is always interesting and rewarding for us to re-visit gardens in the years after we designed and constructed them. Very often we continue to maintain many of the gardens that we design, so this year we thought we'd start taking pictures to show how gardens evolve over time.

You can see from this case study the ‘before' and ‘after' photos are quite spectacular. This house was built about 3 years ago, and the garden at that stage consisted of 1 acre of sloping grass. Hardly inspiring. Our lead designer, more...