Mary Keen had shown me your ideas for Hadspen and I really like the questioning energy of your approach.

After the first enthusiasm for what you want to do, I began to wonder if the process might be a little too structured. The fluid creativity between owner, designer and gardener might be rather stifled by being compartmentalized. There needs to be a continuing ricochet between all three and the place itself. There are moments of magic when a place makes its own demands and we all manage to listen. Perhaps a bit hippy romantic, but instinct and intuition have a powerful role.
Some of the FAO analysis seemed a little laborious and simply part of the automatic process that a designer should always go through. And I also wonder if the self-conscious link to the other arts might be a little strained. Alexander Pope insisted that a garden should encompass these as a matter of course.

The discussion you are stirring up may be even more valuable than the garden itself. I wonder if you might provoke it to step back even further and begin with the point of a garden altogether. Why do we do it and what direction should we be looking in now? Patterns are interesting and plants are wonderful, but it might be much more interesting to start with what you yourself want from a garden. I would trust selfish sensuality in this more than abstracted speculation.

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