Joe Perkins Design

Planting in one of the dry raised borders at our National Trust project Garden For The Future at Sheffield Park & Garden.
This area of the garden was designed as a place for people to spend time, while also exploring how more resilient planting might respond to the changing conditions we are increasingly experiencing.
The planting brings a different seasonal rhythm to Sheffield Park, complementing rather than competing with the late spring rhododendrons and the celebrated autumn colour for which the landscape is famous.
While the framework provides year-round structure, summer is when these borders come into their own, with a succession of colour, texture and movement through June and July.
Swipe through to the last two slides to see a pan around of this area or better still come and see it for yourself!

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

Yesterday was Medal Day at The Chelsea Flower Show.
This year I’ve been on the other side of the process, training as a judge, and this was my final year. A very different perspective on a show I’ve been part of for years. I’ve been reflecting on what Chelsea really means to me, the challenge, the teamwork, the causes we get to support, and why we keep coming back!
Head to our journal to read the full article – link in bio. 🔗

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

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A few snaps from press day yesterday at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

This year I’ve had the privilege of being part of the judging team in the show garden category, it’s been an intense but hugely rewarding experience and my brain is still aching!
A huge amount of discussion and consideration goes into every decision, especially with such an incredibly strong and varied collection of gardens this year. No two are alike, which makes it both challenging and inspiring in equal measure.

Wishing everyone the very best of luck today.

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

Heading up to London today for the final weekend before the Chelsea Flower Show opens on Monday, this time in a different role, as part of the judging team.
Hard to believe it’s already been a year since our garden, Seeding Success, sponsored by .giving.back in their final year of supporting Chelsea gardens. Over the past five years they’ve helped bring so many incredible gardens to life, and it’s been such a privilege to be part of that.
It’s such an incredible team effort bringing these gardens to life. From designers and contractors through to plantsmen, growers, and all the many hands behind the scenes, it really does take a village. And to then go on and win a gold medal is, of course, what everyone hopes for, but really it’s the cherry on the cake of that collective effort.
There’s always something special about this final push in the days before the gates open, the energy, the pressure, and the weather doing its own thing right up to the last minute.
Good luck to everyone at the show and looking forward to seeing what this year’s show brings!

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

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An unforgettable afternoon celebrating 50 years of the at Buckingham Palace. 🇬🇧🥳

Rain and sunshine, immaculate uniforms, brass bands, endless cups of tea, delicious food in the Legacy Tent, and a stroll around the palace gardens with thousands of others who have all been touched in some way by the work of this incredible charity.

We were so honoured to be invited following our Chelsea Flower Show garden Seeding Success last year, sponsored by .giving.back with The King’s Trust as our charity partner. A project that meant a great deal to us, and one that reminded us just how life-changing the Trust’s work continues to be for so many young people.

Great to catch up with our Chelsea contractors .uk and even a moment of royal DJing from The King himself. 🎧

Thank you to everyone at The King’s Trust for including us in such a special celebration. Here’s to the next 50 years!

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

Yes, we’re talking about AI too!
The short version: yes, it’s changing the industry. But the things that make a garden truly great – place, people and time are exactly the things AI can’t replicate.
In our studio, good design has always come from close observation, collaboration and care over time. Whatever tools come and go, that approach doesn’t change.
To read the full article head to our journal, link in bio.

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

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We’re working with Architects on this incredible project in a beautiful site in the Sussex countryside. These night-time visuals show how the house and garden sit within their landscape after dark, with lighting carefully considered to enhance the atmosphere and way the garden is experienced in the evening.
Swipe back a few posts to see the daytime visuals!

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

Visuals:

The way we think about lawns is slowly shifting — and No Mow May is definitely part of that conversation, but maybe the change needs to go further than a month.
My garden is small, but even a small space can shift. This patch hasn’t been regularly mown for a few years, and it’s slowly become something else.
A couple of years ago I added a few bulbs — Camassia, Allium christophii and gladiolus byzantinus — which bring early colour before the grasses and wild plants take over.
It’s not a “meadow” in any pure sense — it’s messy, mixed, mostly grass, a fair bit of bindweed — but it’s full of life. Bees, butterflies, grasshoppers… it hums in a way a mown lawn never does.
If leaving the whole lawn is a step too far for you maybe consider leaving a patch or two. For example longer grass around a bench can be really lovely. For larger gardens mowing paths through longer grass, letting other areas run a bit wilder, keeping a sense of intention without everything being cut short is much easier to maintain and better for the environment.
A small experiment, really, in letting go a little — and seeing what returns.
With around 23 million private gardens in the UK, even small shifts in how we manage them add up to something significant for biodiversity.
The first four slides are how it’s looking right now, swipe through to see the stages and swipe to the end to see at the height of summer last year.

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

A Birds Eye view!
We’re working in close collaboration with Architects and landscape contractor on this really exciting project!
Getting drone footage is proving incredibly useful — not only to record progress but to offer a completely different perspective on the site.
The landscape is already taking shape, with the pool and surrounding planting in place, along with a parterre settling into its structure. We’re especially excited to see the bespoke sauna, currently being built, come into its own within the scheme.
Beyond these more defined areas, the wider grounds will be wildflower meadow with mown paths weaving through.
As you can see the house is currently under construction.
Once the builders are finished, the landscapers will complete the areas around it, so the clients will arrive into a more established, matured garden.

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

Great evening at the Pineapple Awards with Pippa GM of Sheffield Park & Garden celebrating Garden for the Future being shortlisted in the Climate Resilience category 🍍🙌
Big congratulations to all the winners and really looking forward to speaking about our project at The Festival of Place in June!

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com

With today marking World Earth Day, and the theme “Our Power, Our Planet”, it feels fitting to talk about Garden for the Future at Sheffield Park and Garden — our National Trust project exploring how historic landscapes can adapt to a changing climate while remaining grounded in their heritage.
The garden sits within the existing designed landscape at Sheffield Park & Garden, introducing a contemporary layer of planting and spatial thinking that responds to climate, biodiversity, and community, while respecting what is already there.
For us as a studio, this work reflects what we’re increasingly focused on: planting and design strategies that respond to the changing climate, and developed in close collaboration with clients, architects and contractors to ensure landscapes and built form work together as one.
The project has been recognised with a Sussex Heritage Trust Award, shortlisted for a BALI Award, and is now shortlisted for a Pineapple Award for Climate Resilience category, with the ceremony taking place this evening. We’ll be there — wish us luck!
At its core, it’s a reminder that landscapes are living systems — and how we design and care for them now directly shapes their resilience in the future.

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ABOUT: Joe Perkins Design is a multi-award-winning landscape design consultancy, creating innovative outdoor spaces that celebrate the environment, wildlife, and biodiversity. Working across the UK and internationally, we partner with clients who share our passion for sustainable and visionary design. Discover more about our work at: www.joeperkinsdesign.com