Elections, thrifting and garden gurus

It's Saturday. Election day in my home state of Queensland. Don't know the results yet as polls haven't closed. Up early. Vote. Trawl the thrift stores, couple of house inspections (still looking, very jaded by now) and I'm exhausted. Settle in to write WINKS when I visit a site sent to us and my spirits lift. Knibb design gardens that speak to your heart. Flowing hills of grass, sweet little shell details dotting gravel paths, garden rooms and garden getaways. Think rolling hills and clipped grass, meadows and ponds. So here's a very abridged version of WINKS. With spring sprung in the Northern Hemisphere maybe this is just the inspiration to start thinking about the garden.

Knibb Design have opened a new showroom with CL Sterling & Son in Venice, California which is what started me on this garden adventure. An invitation to the opening lead me to garden gurus and gorgeous lighting. Here are just a few examples.

Outdoor favourites

Light Locations

I've gone through my files and found my favourite "outdoor rooms" for 2008. I love living outside as much as possible and if I had spaces as stylish as these I doubt I'd want to come back inside. Whether a chair pulled up casually in a favourite garden corner, a private place on a veranda or an architect's dream melding outside with in there is inspiration a plenty.

realestate.com.au	Alison Miksch
Claesson Koivisto Rune	Lucyina Moodie

William Hefner

Secret Gardens

Eric Staudenmaier	Eric Staudenmaier
Reed Davis	Shootspaces

Sandy Koepke

Marie Claire Maison

Quentin Bacon	Magni Design

Sandy Koepke

Lucyina Moodie

Landart

It's a clever name, Landart Landscapes. This garden design firm creates that connection between outdoors and in that we all crave, that extra space, the outdoor room that we all covet. It helps to be based in Sydney with it's beautiful climate and relaxed lifestyle. It also helps to have such a design connection with nature. I so want the apartment balcony with the fish tank. Come on summer! (Apologies to our Northern Hemisphere readers :P)

Images from Landart Landscapes

Modular Garden

Kim has a small rather bare backyard. We were only discussing the other day what to do with it now that summer has arrived. Normally on a Sunday Kim scours Flickr for inspiring finds and I thought I would do the same. After typing deck and garden into the search box I didn't have to go far to find all the inspiration I needed. I found modular.garden. Checking their profile I discovered that they are one of the UK's leading garden design companies. Not hard to see why. These are fabulous small space solutions with interesting hard landscaping and gorgeous plantings. With their designs the indoors and out meld seamlessly and "garden rooms" provide much needed extra space. Check out their website for cool before and after shots as well as plans for some of these gardens. I love Flickr finds don't you?

Images from modular.garden