Soil, Sand and Sward

Experiments in Naturalistic Planting Design

with Sarah Price

Friday 19 September 2025

10am - 4pm (arrive at 9.30 for coffee/tea)

£140

Group Size - 10 people

Sarah Price is one of Britain’s most respected garden designers.   Her work is inspired by her life long love of natural landscapes and close observation of how plants grow in the wild.    She has won several gold medals at Chelsea Flower Show including the much loved 2023 garden inspired by Cedric Morris’s Benton End.   

For the last few years she has been based in Abergavenny, on the edge of the  Black Mountains in Wales,  where she has been developing the two acre victorian walled garden once owned by her grandparents and where she spend childhood holidays.  It is here that she has had the freedom to experiment with different techniques and substrates and had the opportunity to observe how plants respond when grown in different environments such as low nutrient recycled gravel or in thick, competitive grass in the woodland garden.

In this workshop Sarah will discuss her influences and share what she has learned from her experiments as she has observed how her garden has evolved. We’ll spend some time outside to consider how to read ecologies in the garden and how planting communities might endure or change over time. We’ll also discuss the role of maintenance and how this forms an essential part of the design.

Refreshments

Alison will prepare a delicous vegetarian lunch including produce from the garden. We will round up the day with tea and home made cake. If you have any specific dietary requests do let us know on the booking form.

What to Bring

Check the weather forecast before you travel and ensure you bring appropriate clothing, whether that’s waterproofs or sun hats, or possibly both!  You may wish to bring a notebook and camera too.

Getting Here

Directions will be emailed to you a couple of weeks before the workshop. Use Damson Farm rather than the postcode on Google Maps.

Cancellation policy

As a small business it’s not sustainable to offer refunds. However if you need to cancel your place up to 28 days before the event you will be offered a credit towards another workshop.   After that time, the offer only applies if we’ve been able to re-sell the place. It’s not possible to promote cancelled places for re-sale less than 4 days before the event.