VaRa Garden Design

03/07/2025

It was 10 years ago this week that we built our very first garden design at the prestigious RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show no less!!

Having won a planting design competition at Capel Manor College, we applied to the RHS to create a Show Garden. Provender Nurseries kindly donated the plants and we were given £5k (a very modest budget!!) by our college to build a Show Garden.

After months of planning and 2 stressful and back-breaking weeks on-site, we created an award-winning garden in which Joe Swift sat and recorded the opening of the BBC coverage of the Show, which earned us an RHS Silver-Gilt Medal.

Thanks to all of the students that helped us, to the professionals that guided us, to the suppliers that donated materials and plants, and to the industry that welcomed us.

Since the Show, we have been designing gardens for 10 years now, and have had the pleasure of creating wonderful spaces for our clients, both private, charity and corporate..

We want to say thank you to those early clients who put their trust in us to help create wonderful spaces and to all the lovely people we have met along the way, some of whom have remained friends and continue to invite us back to see how their gardens grow!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16sCtjZb3-U

19/06/2025

Trees are just the most majestic (and useful) things in a garden! We love using them in all of our design schemes, no matter the size of the ground space - look up, think vertical!
And particularly on a day like today, they provide the best cool, shady spots.

This beautiful magnolia tree in our clients' front garden makes such a striking entrance, and by underplanting it with year round as well as seasonal colour, it is instantly anchored to the space and the rest of the garden's planting scheme.

08/05/2025

In the run up to Chelsea, next week we will be talking all about Planting Design. Watch this space…..

27/02/2025

Acorns Children's Hospice

All of the bedrooms at Acorns Children's Hospice, Walsall, will look out on to the new outdoor space.

22/11/2024

We are so proud to be involved with this exciting new Greenfingers Charity garden at Acorns Children's Hospice!!

We’re really looking forward to working once again with Vanessa and Rachel of VaRa Garden Design, who together with Paul Taylor Landscapes, will be helping us to bring ‘The Centred Garden’ to life at Acorns Children's Hospice at the start of 2025.

Having previously created the 60th Greenfingers garden at Rainbows Hospice for Children and Young People - which won the HTA News Benevolent Fund Award for ‘the project that made the most impact on a community’ - the VaRa team will be using their experience to create yet another vital garden space for children and families to enjoy.

The plan is to transform the central outside space at Acorns to include planting to create interest, play and sensory equipment, coloured shade outside each bedroom suite – and much more.

With the Garden set to be on show from every aspect of the hospice building, we’re excited for VaRa’s design to take centre stage... 💚

04/07/2024

09/08/2023

06/08/2023

We’re thrilled to be working with Greenfingers Charity again on Acorns Children's Hospice garden!

01/06/2022

And suddenly it’s a wrap on RHS Chelsea Flower Show for this year!!

We’ve had a blast, worked hard and thoroughly enjoyed being part of our industry’s ‘greatest show’.

Before we hang up our steel toe capped boots, we thought we’d celebrate with a few posts sharing our favourite plants, our favourite gardens and our favourite people…..

……so first up, our favourite plants from our own showground planting;

1. Digitalis ‘Foxlight Mix’ brought a light spike to the shady borders
2. Trollius ‘Golden Queen’ zinged in the sunshine by the RHS Hub
3. Achillea ‘The Beacon’ popped through the grasses
4. Achillea ‘Sassy Summer Lemon’ strutted it’s stuff on the dance floor by the Bandstand
5. Paeonia ‘Shirley Temple’ proved very popular on the stage
6. Epimedium ‘Purple Pixie’ with its delicate, nodding flowers tucked itself away under the mimosa tree
7. Phosocarpus ‘Diablo’ revealed its pale pink flowers just in time by the Serpentine Corner
8. Polystichum polyblepharum showed off its arching fronds in the reflection of sculptures

Thank you to and Daisy Roots for your fabulous plants, that everyone has so enjoyed this past week!!

26/05/2022

After all the razzmatazz of Press Day, it was great to have the doors finally open to the public at the Chelsea Flower Show!!

This year we also decorated the bandstand with a riot of colour and froth with;
Achillea ‘Sassy Summer Lemon’
Peony ‘Dancing Butterfly’
Selene ‘Rollies Favorite’
Salvia ‘Caradonna Pink’
And a specially bred Verbena called ‘Peter Seabrook’ in honour of the late British gardening writer & television broadcaster who passed away earlier this year

Can’t wait to see the fabulous bands take to the stage this Show!

25/05/2022

If you go down to the woods today.....how many mirrored sculptures can you find?!

Collaborating with artist Lee Borthwick, her ethereal pieces of art are bringing an other-worldly quality to our woodland shady planting at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show this year. One moment they appear like pools of water, and the next they become windows into secret gardens.
Here, one of the sculptures is nestled amongst Dicentra 'Spring Magic', Blechnum spicant and Geranium macc. 'Ingwersen’s Variety', beautifully reflecting the arching Cornus controversa and nodding Aquilegia 'White Star'.

If you're at the Show, make sure you hunt them out on your way past Parker & Coop and Cashmere Caveman WildKitchen to Raymond Blanc's Jardin Blanc and the fabulous RHS House Plant Studios and shady Sanctuary Gardens!

photo


.duval

21/05/2022

Final touches to our RHS Chelsea planting today! Beautiful artwork by reflects lush foliage, flowers and tree canopies. Her work is eye catching and provides an ever-changing view of these shady natural spaces.