WORKSHOP : 'Passion plus knowledge - a guide to designing your garden'

$95.00
sold out

With Jenny Cooper and Julia Atkinson-Dunn

This is an in person workshop hosted at the Blue House, Amberley, North Canterbury.
Sunday 27th August
2 - 5 pm

Do you wish to create a beautiful, peaceful, garden to suit your lifestyle, budget and time available? Or perhaps you have bought an established garden and are unsure how to renovate it, tackling the issues that come with mature trees and shrubs.

Whether you want to make better use of the space you inhabit or need a complete redesign, we will give you our approach to identifying the challenges and opportunities of your property, providing inspiration to build your plan with confidence.

This immersive, information-laden workshop is designed to help you answer the big questions: What sort of garden do you want to create?  How do you find your personal style? Right down to practical advice around new bed prep, deciding your planting palette, staying within budget, and the best way to suppress weeds- plus much more.

Spend an afternoon at the beautiful Blue House Amberley. Our group will enjoy the presentation inside this architecturally designed passive home, but the workshop includes a garden tour for you to enjoy the spring hellebores and see the winter cutback in progress. This 3-hour in-person session begins with afternoon tea, and ends with a wine, finger food and chat.

We are both knowledgeable gardeners who believe passionately in sharing our experience in a fun, inspiring and informal way. We both come from art and design backgrounds and are inspired by overseas garden design trends so we will bring a strong design focus to the discussion.
However here our similarities end - one of us is a very experienced gardener, who began with a bare 4600 m2 sheep paddock. The other is a relatively new gardener who renovated and transformed her established urban garden as she learned the ropes. One of us leans towards structure and the other towards romance in a garden - combined we have a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to share.

  • WORKSHOP POINTS OF FOCUS :
    - Where to begin
    - Finding your personal style
    - Design before you dig
    - Understanding your environment
    - Renovating and old garden
    - New bed prep
    - Time
    - Budget
    - Quality tools

Limit of 20 attendees
Talk supported by visual presentation indoors
Refreshments and nibbles provided
Time to explore the Blue House garden - please bring gumboots and wet weather gear in case.

With Jenny Cooper and Julia Atkinson-Dunn

This is an in person workshop hosted at the Blue House, Amberley, North Canterbury.
Sunday 27th August
2 - 5 pm

Do you wish to create a beautiful, peaceful, garden to suit your lifestyle, budget and time available? Or perhaps you have bought an established garden and are unsure how to renovate it, tackling the issues that come with mature trees and shrubs.

Whether you want to make better use of the space you inhabit or need a complete redesign, we will give you our approach to identifying the challenges and opportunities of your property, providing inspiration to build your plan with confidence.

This immersive, information-laden workshop is designed to help you answer the big questions: What sort of garden do you want to create?  How do you find your personal style? Right down to practical advice around new bed prep, deciding your planting palette, staying within budget, and the best way to suppress weeds- plus much more.

Spend an afternoon at the beautiful Blue House Amberley. Our group will enjoy the presentation inside this architecturally designed passive home, but the workshop includes a garden tour for you to enjoy the spring hellebores and see the winter cutback in progress. This 3-hour in-person session begins with afternoon tea, and ends with a wine, finger food and chat.

We are both knowledgeable gardeners who believe passionately in sharing our experience in a fun, inspiring and informal way. We both come from art and design backgrounds and are inspired by overseas garden design trends so we will bring a strong design focus to the discussion.
However here our similarities end - one of us is a very experienced gardener, who began with a bare 4600 m2 sheep paddock. The other is a relatively new gardener who renovated and transformed her established urban garden as she learned the ropes. One of us leans towards structure and the other towards romance in a garden - combined we have a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to share.

  • WORKSHOP POINTS OF FOCUS :
    - Where to begin
    - Finding your personal style
    - Design before you dig
    - Understanding your environment
    - Renovating and old garden
    - New bed prep
    - Time
    - Budget
    - Quality tools

Limit of 20 attendees
Talk supported by visual presentation indoors
Refreshments and nibbles provided
Time to explore the Blue House garden - please bring gumboots and wet weather gear in case.

ABOUT JENNY:

@bluehouse_amberley

Jenny planted her first garden when she was 10, and gardening has been a life-long source of happiness and creativity.  She has created five gardens in New Zealand and Western Samoa, her latest and most ambitious is an acre of beautiful land in North Canterbury which sent her on a new journey to learn how to cope with the harsh conditions.
Her extensive research into summer-dry gardens, naturalistic planting design, and climate-resilient gardening, means that she has a wealth of practical knowledge on how to work with your land, with all its strengths and limitations, in order to create a garden that is beautiful, functional and appropriate for the resources available.

An experienced and gifted communicator, Jenny is an award-winning illustrator of books for children and a trained designer. Thus she brings a strong aesthetic sense and clear design principles to all her garden advice.

Jenny’s garden - Blue House Amberley has been featured in many magazines, including New Zealand House and Garden, Latitude and Go Gardening! , plus she is a frequent speaker and occasional writer on gardens and garden design. Her garden features in The Hurunui Garden Festival (26-29 Oct. 2023) and is an open garden for bus tours and visitors.

Jenny will have a selection of her artwork and books available to purchase at the workshop.

ABOUT JULIA :

@studiohomegardening + @studiohome

Julia fell into the world of gardening when she purchased her Linwood villa in 2017. With a background in interior design and a writer commentating on design, art and creativity she used her growing curiosity to drive her research into renovating and replanting her garden to reflect her personal style.
In 2021 she photographed, wrote and released Petal Power and Flowers for Friends with Koa Press. She also wrote, photographed and filmed for over 90 column pieces for Stuff which were republished in New Zealand’s top regional newspapers.
Her new, most comprehensive book - A Guided Discovery of Gardening is now available for pre-order, debuting in stores in spring 2023.

In June 2023 she launched a subscription-based online gardening magazine and archive  - Unearthed.

Julia is also an artist and continues to be inspired by her garden. Exploring it from her studio to experimenting in the ground, interviewing and writing.
Her approach is always to share through her own experiences and provide a refreshing, friendly take on gardening to inspire her peers.