Anna Ribo Gardens
Garden design and advice with roots in plants
Talks, teaching and sketching classes
How it works:
Rather than having a set way of working, I work with clients to find a model suitable to them and their garden. It all starts with a visit where we discuss your ideas, dreams and concerns and start to make a realistic plan forwards.
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This could include:
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Planting plans
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Plant based garden revamps and restoration
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Garden advice
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Being a sounding board to your idea
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Planting advice to professionals
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In scale, my projects vary from courtyards to estates and from tackling a particular issue to creating planting plans for an area of a garden to full on restoration and replanting of large country gardens. Some projects are one offs, some gardens develop over several years as time and budget allows. I also offer regular visits to clients who wish to undertake most of the planning themselves but feel they benefit from a fresh pair of eyes and advice on garden tasks and planting design.
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Through creative planting, 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.
My work is plant based. 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.
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I want you to have a garden that you enjoy and feel comfortable in, whether it is a courtyard or a country house.
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Currently teaching at:
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Long Barn Gardens:
www.longbarngardens.uk/courses
Society of Garden designers:
www.sgd.org.uk/events/calendar
Water Lane Walled Garden:
Secret garden at the woodshed
@secret_garden_at_the_woodshed of email me for more info
WFGA
www.wfga.org.uk/product-category/events
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For more dates and venues, please follow me on Instagram @annaribogardens
I divide my time between creating and advising on gardens and teaching gardening and sketching, amongst other at Long Barn, Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson's first garden and the precursor to Sissinghurst where I worked as head gardener until recently.
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, shapes and instinct for making planting work visually. After living in London I re found my roots and was lucky enough to be offered to retrain under the WRAGS scheme on 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 much 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 as well as offering freelance planting advice to other professionals.
For garden and drawing courses please visit
www.longbarngardens.uk and The Soceity of Garden Designers www.sgd.org.uk/events/calendar
1-1 teaching available
Please contact me for talks on plants, garden and sketching
