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Notes From Daisy Cottage by the Curly Garden Designer

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Notes From Daisy Cottage by the Curly Garden Designer

Award winning designer.

Noreen is the founder of Noreen Bardsley Garden Design | RHS Chelsea Flower Show Press DM me https://www.instagram.com/curly_garden_design?igsh=eDF3YmZ0MHB2b2R6&utm_source=qr

02/11/2026

There’s always something new to learn, and tonight’s masterclass ‘Design Process’ Andrew Duff was exactly what I needed.

Andrew is a hugely respected garden designer, often called a designer’s designer, and I’ve long admired the lightness of touch in his work.

Andrew talked about Kandinsky, Po***ck and Mondrian, and as someone who studied fine art and then fashion and textiles, I was transfixed.

Above all, it felt like an external pat on the back. “Procrastinating isn’t a bad thing, being bored is great”, and if a design hasn’t been challenging you probably haven’t done your best for it.

He talked about not always having a fixed plan, which is how I love working on site, placing plants, stones and timber until they feel right. We went down a lovely rabbit hole about how in Japan timber is chosen for its scent and oils. I’m fairly sure I was telling him things he already knew, but he’s far too lovely to let on.

One slide read “a line is not just a line, it is a conversation”, a quote from John Brookes, who Andrew worked with closely. My designs have fluid lines and painterly planting, but always a grid tied to the house, and I hadn’t realised how much of that goes back to my early study of Brooke’s.

Now on my reading list, Spirit of Place. And one to try straight away, “planting carrots and parsnips and letting them flower!”

Thank you Andrew, for a properly inspiring evening 🙏 and to Yamini for the wonderful hospitality.

Andrew Duff
Noreen Bardsley Garden Design Studio

31/10/2026

A north facing, sloping front garden. Dry soil. Right on the street. Room for three or more bins and clear access to the front door. If ever there was proof that the smallest spaces are often the most complicated, this is it.

But I’m now so excited about this garden for a lovely family in Sydenham.

They didn’t want to feel hemmed in by hedges and a wall of shrubs, which is an approach to front gardens I really champion. Front gardens can be generous. They can give something back to the street, to the neighbours walking past and to the wildlife moving between gardens. My clients were drawn to a looser, more romantic style, and colour was a huge part of the brief because it ties straight back to the way they’ve decorated their home.

And for a shady garden? This one delivers on colour.

I can’t share too much just yet, so make sure you’re following along for updates as it comes together.

Now I’d love to hear from you.

Hedges and shrubs in a front garden, yes or no? Do you like the privacy or would you rather open it up to the street?

Where do your bins live? Tell me below how you’ve made them work in a small space.

Ready to begin? Get in touch. My painterly approach creates unique, sustainable and immersive plant-led gardens.

Noreen Bardsley Garden Design |
Pro Landscaper Award winner 2026

30/10/2026

I love watching a garden coming together and it’s not unusual for a garden to be completed in phases; when a property is as substantial as this one in the New Forest it can be the most sensible approach.

The Shepard’s Hut its walkway and garden were completed in late spring. While work has begun on the sunny borders. They wrap around the home and are filled with perennials and grasses that will add movement, height and colour, among them Echinops, Verbena bonariensis, Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’ and Deschampsia ‘Goldtau’, alongside generous swathes of Salvia ‘Caradonna’ and Lavender ‘Grosso’.

Shrub roses, viburnums and Amelanchier trees are the thread connecting the garden to the woodland beyond. Right now the woods sit as a backdrop, but as these trees and shrubs mature the aim is to bring the forest in.

Evergreens punctuate the borders, with the softness of Pittosporum ‘Silver Queen’ and the grounding mounds of Pittosporum tobira ‘Nanum’. Silvery Stachys byzantina and hardy geraniums weave through, while a fig tree espaliered along the wall, star jasmine, thyme and prostrate rosemary soften the threshold between the hard and soft landscaping.

If you’re still reading, isn’t the roof tile path beautiful? It links the patio to the herb garden and greenhouse, and it’s made from tiles saved from my clients’ roof works. Inspired by the reclaimed Victorian slate path in my own garden, it’s been such a lovely, sustainable way to give old materials a new life and root the garden in the history of the house.

Make sure to follow to see how this garden settles in.

Ready to begin? Get in touch. My painterly approach creates unique, sustainable and immersive plant-led gardens.

Noreen Bardsley Garden Design |
Pro Landscaper Award winner 2026 Noreen Bardsley Garden Design Studio

30/10/2026

It’s been a busy week with the whole family at home. I work from home too designing gardens, and my work zone was taken over by Halloween costume making. My kids know that they only have to say what they want to be and I’m like “challenge excepted!” This year sticky back plastic even came into play. A absolute classic.

Noreen Bardsley Garden Design
Pro Landscaper Award winner 2026

30/10/2026

Autumn glow.

Ready to begin? Get in touch. My painterly approach creates unique, sustainable and immersive plant-led gardens.

Noreen Bardsley Garden Design |
Pro Landscaper Award winner 2026 Noreen Bardsley Garden Design Studio

29/10/2026

It was only when I started filming that it struck me how bonkers it is to be wandering round the garden in a vest in almost November! No jumper, no coat, nothing.

The plants are telling the same story. My honeysuckles are opening new flowers, the wisteria needs its third cut back since May, and my lemon tree is pushing out fresh green leaves.

It’s fascinating to watch, but I always find myself worrying about what we can’t see. What’s happening in the soil, to the tiny organisms that share our gardens, and what is the knock on effect of not just an extreme summer heatwave but a long, warm autumn on top of it?

Are you seeing the same in your garden? Tell me below 👇

Ready to begin? Get in touch. My painterly approach creates unique, sustainable and immersive plant-led gardens.

Noreen Bardsley Garden Design |
Pro Landscaper Award winner 2026

29/10/2026

Go check out this arid garden. It’s a wonderful autumn treat. Free entry

Get in touch. My painterly approach creates unique, sustainable and immersive plant-led gardens.

Noreen Bardsley Garden Design |
Pro Landscaper Award winner 2026

29/10/2026

Before I left home for the private book launch of Green Kingdom, (a cosy and intimate evening above a pub), my teen boys reminded me that some of the biggest wow moments in the movie Jurassic Park belonged to plants. Palaeobotanist Dr Ellie Sattler spotted a prehistoric plant before any of us had seen a dinosaur, then plunged her hands and arms into dino dung to find out if poisonous berries had made the Triceratops sick! Green Kingdom has its own jaw dropping dinosaur moments, like cycads, whose giant seeds evolved toxins to survive a diplodocus’s gut. Imagine plants telling us about their ingenuity, adaptations and survival. Well, you don’t have to. Ben has given plants a voice to tell their own story, and I can’t wait to hear what they have to say.

I may be biased. Ben signed my copy “You are the most enthusiastic plants person I know!!” But this isn’t only a book about plants. It’s the story of life in our Green Kingdom, and the people, places and moments Ben’s storytelling unlocks.

It was a joy to see how proud and excited his wife Kate was. She was the first to read the start and finished book. And the critics couldn’t be more enthusiastic. Nigel Slater calls Ben “a master storyteller”, and Bill Bryson, a favourite in our home, says “I don’t expect to read a better work of natural history this year.”

Writer James McConnachie was enthralled in The Sunday Times, and I can’t recall a more glowing plant book review. He too was struck by the berries, writing “Red autumn berries will remind me of the fact that they are an evolutionary response to birds’ eyes being ‘primed for scarlet’.” His verdict? “Green Kingdom is not just a joy to read, it is the kind of book that makes you see differently... Book of the year, for me.”

A book for every man, woman and child, and perhaps the perfect Christmas gift.

Green Kingdom by Ben Dark is out now. SE London locals, Village Books Dulwich has signed copies, or find a link in my bio.

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