Alice Ferguson
Following a successful career in floristry, during which I founded my own business, I am now pursuing my passion for garden design and launching into a new career. My background has always been in art and design. I have a degree in Architecture from Cambridge University and subsequently worked in design and floristry. I founded a successful wedding floristry business (Forage and Blossom) in 2014, which included growing my own cut flowers in a field near my home. I am now amalgamating the two parts of me: art, design and creativity with my passion for nature and human interaction with their surroundings.
After graduating in July 2019 from the London School of Garden Design with Distinction and the college award for the top student of 2019, I joined the design team of Artisan in Bristol. Following two years brilliant years with the Artisan team I am now branching out to set up my own Garden Design Studio based in Bristol and designing nationally.
Find me on Instagram: alice_ferguson_
Biography:
I graduated from London College of Garden Design with Distinction and the college award for Top Student 2019.
During the Diploma I volunteered on the Gold Medal winning `The Facebook Garden: Beyond the Screen’ designed by Joe Perkins at RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2019. This was an incredible experience where I assisted on the planting of the garden with a fantastic team.
In 2014 I founded Forage and Blossom a wedding floristry business where I also grew my own cut flowers. My floral designs are influenced by the wild textured layers of the natural world, seasonal change and I like to bring in rich depth with scent, foliage and texture to awaken the senses. This approach to design has flowed into my response to garden design where I desire to create meaningful and sensory experiences which respond to their surrounding landscape and users. I am now putting my wedding floristry to the side to pursue my passion for garden and landscape design. Although I still do the occasional wedding as I can’t seem to let it go completely.
Prior to my floristry career I graduated from Cambridge University with a BA in Architecture. This has been a natural grounding for me in the world of design.
For me garden and landscape design seems like the two parts of me are now being knitted together in one creative and exciting outlet.
The brief was to create a shared courtyard for two separate homes to enjoy incorporating both shared and private areas.
My aim was to provide an interesting and cohesive space which playfully incorporated privacy and a hierarchy of spaces within the shared courtyard.
The concept was to create a space to escape, a paradise we are invited to. To enjoy either collectively or individually. The design also expressed characteristics of movement, energy and beat which evolved from explorations and abstractions from Matisse’s The Dance.
The space has an overall continuous movement throughout. Along this movement there are individual moments of beat, which correspond to each other to create a overriding rhythm.
The garden is dynamic but also balanced in its motion and forces to create a harmonic space.
There is a central communal heart of the garden sunken between the pools and more intimate areas are formed closer to the houses by a different treatment of the elements of the garden.
The brief was to create a beautiful front garden to be enjoyed not only as a transitionary space, but as a garden its own right.
The goal was to terrace the garden to make it far more accessible and manageable, whilst creating moments along the path to pause and enjoy. The garden is an experience and the dynamic path has moments of opening and contraction to enhance the experience.
We used slate risers and Bexhill clay pavers from Chelmer Valley to compliment the existing materials of the house and create crisp detailing. The angles create three distinct levels in the garden and the steps are a part of the overall design, not just a staircase to reach a from b. The angles draw your eye along the garden, giving a deception of width and to focal features.
