Catriona Rowbotham Garden Design

Catriona Rowbotham Garden Design Architect turned garden designer and tutor, creating beautiful, lasting urban escapes

Soon I'll be an empty nester and, since like many women I did the lion's share of raising our girls, this feels like a t...
09/09/2026

Soon I'll be an empty nester and, since like many women I did the lion's share of raising our girls, this feels like a time of momentous change

I've taken a break from writing about gardens and design to look back on my somewhat circuitous career with the perspective that only age can bring - the highs of my 20s, the lows in the middle and the happy place I've found myself in now as a mid life career changer

Read more on my Substack 'Cultivating Calm'

Link in bio

Our last holiday with our girls before we become fully fledged empty nesters....Obviously I spent it nerding out about w...
07/09/2026

Our last holiday with our girls before we become fully fledged empty nesters....

Obviously I spent it nerding out about water having had months of drought here. I loved learning about the Roman approach to water - more is more basically, hosepipe bans would not have been tolerated 🤣

Goodness it was green in Provence - they must be good at storing rain when it comes plus they don't often rely on grass for greenery and of course have all the right plants in all the right places

There were many other pretty things too of course as well as some excellent food and obligatory Rose but I won't bore you with all those photos as I expect if you're following me here, you might be more interested in the garden stuff:)

It REALLY rained today in my garden 🥳🥳🥳But with Thames Water announcing the hosepipe ban will stay in force until the en...
20/08/2026

It REALLY rained today in my garden 🥳🥳🥳

But with Thames Water announcing the hosepipe ban will stay in force until the end of the year, I'm glad I've started to put some water saving measures in place

Among these:
💧2 new water butts (on top of the one I already had)
💧Olla pots (2 litre clay pots, buried in my borders to slowly release water where it's needed)
💧these teracotta watering spikes from She Grows Veg Ltd (many others are available) in my pots again to slowly release water

Apparently this slow release throigh terracotta is around 70% more efficient than watering with a can. I couldn't say exactly but I'm definitely using significantly less water in my pots & borders

I'm putting wine bottles upside down into the watering spikes because I think they look pretty

.....also it's a good excuse to empty them in the first place:)

I've also got my eye on a dipping tank for next year!

Whilst we can definitely aim to plant more plants that cope with drought, pots and new planting will always need watering so it's worth thinking about those too

So boring not to be able to plant anything all spring & summer otherwise!

I put my tulip order in at the weekend and it feels great to look forward to planting them in cool soil on a cool day af...
18/08/2026

I put my tulip order in at the weekend and it feels great to look forward to planting them in cool soil on a cool day after all this heat and drought

Last year I left it a bit late but it still worked out pretty fine as you can see!

If you'd like some inspiration for your tulip choices, I put a step by step guide together last year on planting tulips in pots. It's almost like a recipe, so good for complete beginners or those, like me, who can never quite remember exactly what they did to make it work the previous year. I actually followed my own steps last year and was considerably more efficient than usual:)

The guide has these combos and a few others that I've tried out over the years as well as pot size, tools needed, compost mix, bulb depths, squirrel proofing - it's v comprehensive!

Find it via the link in my bio - it's free to download

At this point in summer 2026, with no rain for months, is this green and pleasant land a thing of the past in the south ...
11/08/2026

At this point in summer 2026, with no rain for months, is this green and pleasant land a thing of the past in the south of England? Will we be seeing gravel mulches over all of our gardens in a few years' time? I'm not so sure....

I discuss many other options to slowly, calmly garden with less water in my latest Substack. Head to 'Cultivating Calm' there for more

All of this is unwateredWould you expect to see Hydrangea or Astrantia looking like this in a garden that doesn't get wa...
06/08/2026

All of this is unwatered

Would you expect to see Hydrangea or Astrantia looking like this in a garden that doesn't get watered?

No? Me neither

I went to visit Carol Bruce's garden 'Old Bladbean Stud' in June on a really interesting The English Gardening School trip. Carol only grows plants that will survive without any watering

For most of the garden, she allows the perennial understory to self seed around, so the perennials choose where they want to grow best. She doesn't prune or deadhead these in any way

To keep the garden structured, with obvious human care and intervention, she does prune & deadhead the structure planting - her trees, hedges & of course her roses, which she trains beautifully. You can see all this in the first 4 photos

Then, suddenly we turned into an entirely different area of the garden where Carol created symetrical borders, using the same plants she had by then learned were drought resistant

An amazing garden showing what can be done when a gardener slowly observes what's working and is led by the plants (Carol's been gardening this space for 23 years!)

Amazing too as it shows so clearly that drought tolerant planting doesn't need to follow a particular style to be successful. Form follows function? I think not!

Carol recently released a book all about her garden 'In Nature's Slipstream' if you'd like to find out more about it. I have it now and will be enjoying it this summer:)

One of my projects this year involves 3 large, fairly empty planting bedsWhile we're waiting for the build (and planting...
04/08/2026

One of my projects this year involves 3 large, fairly empty planting beds

While we're waiting for the build (and planting) to start this autumn my client really didn't want to spend the summer looking at depressingly empty beds

I suggested she scatter some annual seeds from Pictorial Meadows® in the spring and look what I found when I went to visit last week!

So much better than empty soil no?

I've been sending my monthly newsletters out for a couple of years now. It's where I do a proper round up. It's seasonal...
30/07/2026

I've been sending my monthly newsletters out for a couple of years now. It's where I do a proper round up.

It's seasonally relevant writing on gardens, gardening and design, and every 4 months there's one like this, with a peek at my own design work

Out on the 1st of every month

Sign up via the link in my bio (because I trust you're patient enough to make two clicks)

Going on holiday, particularly if it’s not going to conveniently rain while you’re away, is hard when you really get int...
28/07/2026

Going on holiday, particularly if it’s not going to conveniently rain while you’re away, is hard when you really get into your garden.

Some planning must be done to make sure the garden somehow gets watered and of course, you’re aware that you’re going to miss something, whether that be ripening tomatoes or the blooming of a particular plant.

On top of making sure work is in a good place before you leave, the thought of catching up from work when you get back and the organising of the holiday itself, for some, the thought of it all is too much and they start resenting holidays. In the case of a serious gardener with several acres that I met recently, she even stopped taking holidays altogether.

What camp are you in? Love holidays, slightly resent holidays, don't take holidays?!

Read on in my Substack to hear my take

Dyffryn Fernant Garden - love, love, loveDry, shady, wet, grassy areas, it had them all and all FULL to bursting with i...
23/07/2026

Dyffryn Fernant Garden - love, love, love

Dry, shady, wet, grassy areas, it had them all and all FULL to bursting with interesting planting, beautifully arranged to immerse and also link views out to the wider landscape

The relaxed style throughout was right up my street!

There are little seating areas to enjoy it everywhere and, unusually for me, I liked the sculpture, some of which was techically old farm implement but beautiful nonetheless!

It's not been all work this summer - I've just been too busy inbetween fun stuff to post about it. This garden visit whilst I was on holiday in Pembrokeshire definitely counts as fun

Have you been? Did you like it as much as I did?

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