Garden Design Guru

Garden Design Guru Gold medal winning Garden Design and Creation. We make ordinary spaces into extraordinary places. The latter garden featured on the BBC2 coverage from the show.

We design gardens to suit the people who own them and the location where they reside. Run by Barry Chambers, a fully registered Member of the Society of Garden Designers (MSGD), Garden Design Guru (formerly Changing Scenes) has won two Royal Horticultural Society 'Best in Show' awards at the Malvern Spring Show 2010 and the Hampton Court International Flower Show 2011. Garden Design Guru produces

gardens as varied as our clients but quite a few of them have some coastal influence, be it about sailing, sea spume, driftwood, breakwaters etc. This is never in a kitsch fashion though, always with originality and style as the Gold Medal and Vase from RHS Hampton Court show! Barrys style of design is often abstract but always practical and benefits from the fact he has built many of his designs with his own hands.

This pergola in a recently built design really makes the small space behind the garage into another room in the garden. ...
18/03/2026

This pergola in a recently built design really makes the small space behind the garage into another room in the garden. The diagonal layout draws you in and the overhead structure makes an inviting space. And we still have the planting to come!!!!

When it hasn’t been raining I have been completing a pergola structure to make full use of one of those small areas behi...
08/03/2026

When it hasn’t been raining I have been completing a pergola structure to make full use of one of those small areas behind a clients garage. Each post has two beams on either side and the upper ones are half jointed into the lower ones. It’s quite a serious bit of construction all in all!

The posts are smooth landscaping posts with eased corners. They are sitting on custom made steel crosses one leaf of which is cut into the base and bolted in place. That way we get rusty post bases to match the steel beds.

This will be a shaded seating area with climbing plants on, facing back to the house. More images as we start planting. The pergola is finished but I haven’t taken pictures of tge whole thing yet.

Some more Autumn beauty. Plenty of plants still flowering which will continue until the first frosts cut them back. ...
02/11/2025

Some more Autumn beauty. Plenty of plants still flowering which will continue until the first frosts cut them back.

24/10/2025

Some spellbinding ephemeral beauty for the autumn season. Autumn Crocus (this one is a Crocus but Colchicums are also called Autumn Crocus and are larger) come and go very quickly but are really worth having. The leaves come next and need to be allowed to grow and feed the corms of course, so if planting in grass the management of that area needs to suit.

Lovely Purbeck stone walling coming together to compliment the Egyptian sandstone hand cut steps on the project in Chich...
26/07/2025

Lovely Purbeck stone walling coming together to compliment the Egyptian sandstone hand cut steps on the project in Chichester. Different stones (because the cost of Purbeck is considerable) but they go together really well, sharing tones and textures as they do. Also forming habitat for insects amongst the cracks and crevices.

The pond is filled and the walling continues inside, covering the vertical liner. No video of Swallows swooping down to drink from it yet because I wasn’t recording when I thought I was but it’s joyful to see and provides a much closer spectacle than when you see them over much larger bodies of water.

In this hot weather you may be wondering what sort of planting can take this heat and drought??? Well the answer is plan...
30/06/2025

In this hot weather you may be wondering what sort of planting can take this heat and drought??? Well the answer is plants made resilient by growing them in los nutrient growing conditions. Gravel, grit, sand or even crushed concrete (the last one making real sense if you have some concrete/brick to dispose of). In these conditions plants make really deep roots. They are not so much drought tolerant as drought adapted.

Here’s a project I planted last year which is producing loads of flowers and attracting loads of insects. It’s all planted in 200mm of coarse gravel over unimproved soil. It’s not typical planting although did it many, many years ago.







Reclamation is arguably a great way to make a garden whilst having less impact on the environment. This one pf the most ...
21/06/2025

Reclamation is arguably a great way to make a garden whilst having less impact on the environment. This one pf the most attractive reclaimed features in my garden - the tank of carnivores…! It’s an old water which had been painted when I got it but it also had holes rusted through from the inside. I removed all the loose rust, painted it with a certain rust converting paint and filled the holes. Then carefully mixed paint to a similar shade to the faded exterior (it is in fact a whole range of greens, faded unevenly, which made it ok to touch in with an imperfect match), and then planted it with a variety of carnivorous plants.

Currently I am rationing the rain water reserve for these plants.

In garden design it can be tricky to include reclaimed items but it also makes a really unique and quirky garden. The trust between client and designer is even more important because in finding reclaimed items one has to ‘go with the flow’ to some extent. But then it is always essential to trust your designer, their vision is creating the design and no amount of CGI can supersede that. Especially not when the details come from reclaimed items.

Lots of work going on to create a long thin garden with bespoke Egyptian sandstone slabs which will be complimented by P...
19/06/2025

Lots of work going on to create a long thin garden with bespoke Egyptian sandstone slabs which will be complimented by Purbeck stone rocks and dry stone walling. We have 125mm solid stone steps with a ragged but quite even face, then acid washed slabs and some stone setts will be mixed in. Getting things set out has a bit nail biting but it’s all coming into place.

A round deck will sit near the pond and the curving paths continue in smaller segments up the garden ending up at a gravel planting which will mix Prairie plants with alpines.

Planting really well established and looking great in this project completed a few years ago.If you’re wondering why the...
15/06/2025

Planting really well established and looking great in this project completed a few years ago.

If you’re wondering why there aren’t more posts from me btw, it’s because I am not a fan of social media and I am too busy…

Lots of Camellia sasanqua flowering at Nymans, West Sussex. These ‘Autumn Flowering’ varieties started opening nearly th...
23/12/2024

Lots of Camellia sasanqua flowering at Nymans, West Sussex. These ‘Autumn Flowering’ varieties started opening nearly three months ago in some cases and most still have a great deal of flowers to come. I found a collection of a ‘Paradise’ series and various single flowered varieties helping the various insects which are active put of their usual season because of the variable weather.

Still some visible insect life and plenty of colour at Nymans today. I will make another post of the Camellia sasanqua v...
20/12/2024

Still some visible insect life and plenty of colour at Nymans today. I will make another post of the Camellia sasanqua varieties which were the real stars at the moment, enjoying a long season! In the meantime here are a few pics.

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