The English Garden Magazine, September 2024
Jacky Hobbs's article on creating a prairie-style garden on a small scale at her Cotswold home. See 'Oxfordshire Garden'
"It takes a leap of faith to introduce great informal sweeps of naturalistic grasses and large bodies of perennials to a garden in place of more formal, traditional herbaceous borders. But it's a leap worth taking. You'll achieve a more relaxed planting style; light-catching grasses will add height, light and movement right through winter...and perennials will bring colour, nectar and ultimately seedheads of enormous value to wildlife...Cotswold-based garden designer Katie Guilleaud has mastered (this) technique, creating manageable but effective swathes of mixed perennial planting...in my own garden she has transformed an unsightly gravel parking area into a beautiful prairie-style garden that's perfectly in scale with the plot."
Homes and Gardens, May 2024
“Weathered and timeworn, this old stone drinking trough sits comfortably in its pastoral setting – ‘as if it’s always been there’. Designer Katie Guillebaud ‘considered constructing a raised water feature but felt it would feel out of place; the farm trough adds height but also engenders a real sense of belonging, rooted in the agricultural heritage of the surrounding land’. Naturalistic perennial planting assures a seamless flow from garden into wildflower meadow and pasture beyond. A subtle electric pump breaks the surface water bringing slight movement and gentle babbling." Jacky Hobbs
Gardens Illustrated, December 2023, article by Lia Leanderz
My client Jacky Hobbs took these beautiful wintry shots of her garden. "On a winter day the entire view from Jacky Hobbes's windows shimmers with grass and perennial seedheads. 'I love the fact that these plants stay up all winter. It is wonderful if we get a frost. I go to the bottom of the garden in the morning and look up and its back-lit and its like everything is just sprinkled in diamonds. Its magical, like a fairyland'. The dining terrace, once a place to sit alongside cars, is now enveloped in winter by Katie's plants which were partly chosen for the structure they leave behind once they've died.'You feel like a child because you are so small among these beautiful skeletons. The tiniest bit of frost or even rain and the light comes through and the whole thing just sparkles, it's amazing. And it attracts so many birds, particularly in winter, when they are feasting on the seedheads. Its just a beautiful place to sit and observe'"
(see 'Oxfordshire Garden')
Gardens Illustrated, June 2021
An article about a private garden in Oxford with stunning photos by Jason Ingram and words by Jodie Jones "Looking out over a sea of plants animated by butterflies, bees and a gentle breeze, there is no question that Katie has given her clients the pretty garden they asked for, but she has done it with an intelligent edge which, like the north Oxford suburb in which it is located, keeps it firmly on the right side of cool".
(See 'Garden in Oxford')
Gardens Illustrated, June 2020.
Photos by Jason Ingram and article by Rory Dusoir.
I was absolutely delighted to make the front cover of Garden's Illustrated with this garden I created for a very special manor house in Oxfordshire. Rory Dusoir sums up my approach here as 'fusing a classic Arts and Crafts style with New Perennial planting..... (giving) a traditional garden a contemporary feel...Great gardens, such as Sissinghurst and Great Dixter, pioneered the use of an informal, romantic style of planting to complement a grand manor house. Katie has gone one step further here by introducing elements of a yet more modern planting idiom to accompany this particular fine old house. There aren't many straight lines in a mediaeval timber-framed dwelling - it looms and sprawls and rambles where it pleases. So, Katie's generous treatment of the garden seems to fit perfectly.' (See 'Oxfordshire Manor House')
Country Life, September 2019.
Article by George Plumptree and photos by Andrew Lawson (see 'Oxfordshire Manor House').
Some kind comments from my lovely clients:
"I am absolutely thrilled, the texture, height and movement sing to my soul'
"Working with you has been great and we really appreciate how you thought this all through and the attention to detail."
"Look past the mouth-watering outdoor antiques on this stand and you'll see some very elegant planting. It turns out that Katie Guillebaud, wife of owner Alex Puddy, is his secret weapon. She used to work for leading garden designer Christopher Bradley-Hole and knows a thing or two about plants." (The Telegraph, May 2010)