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Summer has been a mixture of abundant rain and fierce sunshine. Together, these conditions have resulted in considerable growth in our gardens. In new gardens this spurt is appreciated as instant size and colour is always a bonus. However, in my own garden, the conditions have left me feeling as though I'm living with a jungle! Some judicious pruning and tidying (and a note to self to carry out the 'Chelsea Chop' method of restricting and delaying flowering next year) has left the garden looking a lot more manageable and rather beautiful in its lushness!

My garden was full of flowers in late April and early May which were gorgeous but slightly earlier than usual. The Allium had all finished by the time Chelsea Flower Show arrived which was unusual and - looking back at photos from last year - it appears that the trend is continuing. Looking out today, the garden almost looks autumnal with the berries of the Viburnum opulus already looking amazing; the plumes of Macleaya cordata looking stately and upright and the grasses all coming into their own. We're used to being at least two weeks behind the rest of the county up here on our hill - so early flowering is new to us!

We've now left the large Buckinghamshire garden which is slightly sad and strange as weekly visits over the last two years have been part of the working week! However, work is just about to start on another biggie as we commission a contractor to re-instate a large, walled kitchen garden in Hampshire. This is a particularly exciting project with more to come.

In addition to walled kitchen gardens, I'm also working on a number of large family gardens which is fun and means coming to terms with the demands of tennis courts, swimming pools, dogs and lots of children!

We are just taking on a series of visits to existing gardens to take photos so, hopefully, a whole host of new photography will be hitting the web site over the next few weeks.