About Rachel Mathews

Professional international garden designer for over 20 years. My mission is to de-mystify garden design and make it easy for people to successfully design their own garden - without needing to spend a fortune!

Successful Garden Design Tips – Planting with grasses

By Rachel Mathews Leave a Comment

Get the WOW factor garden cheat sheet now!

Enter your best email address below

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-Fkh5lizME

Add the wow factor to your garden this autumn!

In this week’s Successful Garden Design quick tips video we look at different ways to plant grasses effectively in the garden…

Grouping grasses coming up in drifts throughout the other plants is a great way to incorporate grasses into the garden.

Planting grasses this way helps highlight the striking colours of the autumn-flowering, purple Asters, and the burgundy coloured Sedum, providing contrast and softness with texture.

You can also plant in straight rows if your garden has lots of linear elements like hedges and paths. The grasses again act as highlighters to the elements that are already in the garden.

Learn to design your garden like a pro…

If you’d like to attend the free online garden design class mentioned in the video, go to: successfulgardendesign.com/freeclasses

[DESIGN SHOW 23] Great & not so great British garden design

By Rachel Mathews Leave a Comment

Get the WOW factor garden cheat sheet now!

Enter your best email address below

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA-Y5gfvi2Q

In this episode Rachel continues her tour of Great British gardens and shows what to do and more importantly what not to do in your garden!

Hestercombe near Taunton in Somerset is the first garden featured in this episode. It was designed by the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens and planting was done by Gertrude Jekyll.

The attention to detail in the hard landscaping materials puts this glorious garden in a league of its own.

Complimented by the outstanding planting skills of Gertrude Jekyll with her attention on colour, clarity and form makes for a stunning combination.

Don’t make this easy error in your garden…

Great gardens are created through careful planning. Always put your ideas on paper BEFORE you build them and check everything lines up correctly!

A great garden in Gloucestershire

Bourton House Garden is a lovely garden to visit with lots of interesting box sculptures, colour borders and a lovely tea room!

Create a gorgeous garden yourself…

If you’d like to attend the free fast track garden design training mentioned, go to: https://www.successfulgardendesign.com/freeclasses/ and choose the class that suits your garden.

Filed Under: Design Show, Garden Design

Successful Garden Design Tips – importance of proper planning

By Rachel Mathews Leave a Comment

Get the WOW factor garden cheat sheet now!

Enter your best email address below

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm8a-JLp9FY

They say never work for friends or family… here’s a garden that DIDN’T go to plan…

In the video you will see how important it is to:

Plan properly
Stick to the plan!

It’s SO easy to get carried away when landscaping your garden and not really consider how everything has a knock on effect with everything else.

Make sure you know about design before you landscape your garden!

Need some help?

If you’d like to attend the free fast track garden design class that Rachel mentions in the video go to: https://www.successfulgardendesign.com/freeclasses

Filed Under: Garden Design, Successful Garden Design Tips Videos Tagged With: front garden, Garden Design, landscape design

Successful Garden Design Tips – overlooked gardens

By Rachel Mathews Leave a Comment

Get the WOW factor garden cheat sheet now!

Enter your best email address below

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHWNHfbxyG8

This week we take a look at how to lessen the impact of being overlooked by lots of buildings and creating a lovely garden!

A quiet peaceful space can still be created in a very overlooked garden. The height of the trees helps take they eyes away from the buildings.

You don’t have to use palm trees to create this effect. Any tree that is suitable for your size and location will also work. Birch trees (Betula) and Sorbus aria Lutescens are great choices for small space gardens.

If your garden is very small and can’t accommodate a tree, the non-invasive bamboos like the black stemmed variety can also provide plenty of vertical interest.

Download the cheat sheet and watch the video training

Mentioned in the video is our free WOW factor cheat sheet and video tutorial – you can get them here: https://www.successfulgardendesign.com/wow/

Filed Under: Garden Design, Successful Garden Design Tips Videos Tagged With: Garden Design, landscape design

[DESIGN SHOW 22] Creating glorious herbaceous flower borders

By Rachel Mathews Leave a Comment

Get the WOW factor garden cheat sheet now!

Enter your best email address below

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZpV2GGxYLU

In this episode Rachel visits some wonderful gardens in the south of England and takes a look at what makes their herbaceous flower borders great… as well as not so great!

This lovely herbaceous border is one of the first parts of the West Dean Gardens. It looks great mid to late summer.

Gardens featured are Waterperry in Oxfordshire and West Dean gardens in West Sussex

The striking vegetable garden was hidden behind some stunning herbaceous borders.

The hot colours looked great and the shape and form of all the plants, combined with the colours made for a great looking border.

Further up the garden was this lovely pergola walk made from stone columns and covered with climbing roses, Clematis, Wisteria, jasmine and much more.