Oxford College of Garden Design - Garden Design Blog page

Outdoor Lighting: How to Design a Garden Lighting Scheme Pt. III

Written by Duncan Heather on November 28, 2017.

In this final article on outdoor lighting, we will look at a real scheme. In the first article we looked at the different outside lights, such as uplighting, downlight, path lighting moonlighting In the second article on garden lights we covered the different fittings and the choice of lamps. [...]

Garden lights: How to Design a Garden Lighting Scheme Pt.II

Written by Duncan Heather on November 21, 2017.

In Pt. 2 of this three-part article on How to Design a Garden Lighting Scheme, we look at garden lights, the fixtures, what they are and how they are used. Garden Lights: Spot Lights The fixtures pictured above are examples of bullet-style spotlight fixtures. The one on the left is in a bronze [...]

Outside Lights: How to Design a Garden Lighting Scheme

Written by Duncan Heather on November 14, 2017.

Outside lights are fundamental to any successful landscape scheme. In this 3 part article, we’ll discuss the different outside light fittings as well as their quality and durability. The different lamps available, as well as how, what and where to place outside lights for maximum effect. The [...]

Garden Design Tutorial: Banning the Eraser

Written by Duncan Heather on November 9, 2017.

Why Banning the Eraser will Make you a Better Designer In this garden design tutorial, I ban my students from using an eraser! Instead, I encourage them to make mistakes which can then lead to happy accidents. I have often used the analogy of ‘writers block’ when it comes to designing. Some [...]

How to Measure A Garden

Written by Duncan Heather on November 1, 2017.

Site Surveying: How to Measure A Garden and Plot it on Paper Before you can start designing a garden, you need to know how to measure a garden, then plot it on paper. In order to do this, you will need to carry out a site survey. Your area measurement should be as accurate as possible, as mistakes [...]