Anna Ribo Gardens
Garden design and advice with roots in plants
What it's all about
It is good to be surrounded by plants. We have lived with and depended on plants for much longer than we have depended on offices and commuting. Plants can entice you into your garden to experience and enjoy the change of seasons. They provide stimuli in the form of scent and colour and the tactile sensation of rubbing a leaf, letting one's hand flow over wildflowers and picking a berry or a flower.
I want you to have a garden that you enjoy and feel comfortable in, whether it is a courtyard or a country house.
Through creative planning, we can create areas with different views to enjoy your evening tipple, distinct areas each with their own atmosphere, make your garden sit comfortably in the landscape and find something for you to enjoy through the year.
A deep love of nature and plants underpin my work. Rather than simply being a buzz word, it is the basis of how I make gardens. Surely, flowering bulbs in the darkest month bring as much joy to humans as relief to an early bumblebee emerging from hibernation and looking for a feed? And as autumn descends in the garden, how lovely it is to still have flowers till the first frost, a sentiment shared by pollinators that are active for much longer as the climate changes. A mixture of flower shapes and contrasting foliage works visually as well as catering for a wide range of palettes in the natural world. And the variety that comes from making the most of a garden's conditions not only makes for a much more interesting garden but creates a range of habitats.
By thinking creatively in the planning process, we can create a garden that you will enjoy looking at and being in. Having had the experience not only of planting a great variety of gardens but having to create and look after large areas of exuberant planting in Vita Sackville-West's first garden means that I have a very real understanding of maintenance and can be realistic when we discuss your garden.
I divide my time between making gardens and being the head gardener, garden tutor and planting advisor at Long Barn, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson's first garden and the precursor to Sissinghurst.
My interest in horticulture started as a child when I grew up in the grounds of a slightly neglected Danish renaissance castle amongst the ‘ghosts’ of Victorian glasshouses, topiary and magnificent borders with the old gardener (and his antique tractor) as a grumpy, knowledgeable friend.
I studied Fine Arts in Denmark, sharpening my sense of colour and shapes and a knowledge and instinct for making planting work visually. After many years in London I re found my roots and was lucky enough to be offered to retrain under the WRAGs scheme in a beautiful, private Sussex estate. I am Royal Horticultural Society qualified at Hever Castle and have studied the arts and crafts of gardening at Great Dixter.
Most importantly, I have created gardens for nearly a decade and thoroughly enjoy teasing out exactly what my clients want from their garden and finding a creative way of realising it. It gives me huge joy that most come back to continue developing their gardens with me.
Based in Tunbridge Wells, I make gardens in East Sussex, West Kent and surrounding areas
For garden and drawing courses at Long Barn, please visit
www.longbarngardens.uk
