A Walk Down Tessa's Jewelry Garden

"I have hundreds of garden memories from my childhood For me, the garden was one big adventure playground with endless opportunities for discovery and self-entertainment," says Tessa Packard, whose favourite pastimes included climbing trees and breakneck speeds; using the box hedges as an equestrian assault course where she would pretend to be a jockey in the Grand National; creating soups and magical potions from whatever she could find growing around her The London-based designer, who spent most of her carefree years in Southern Scotland, has turned to gardens for inspiration.

Her newest collection, aptly named 'Once Upon A Time In My Garden,' meanders through her childhood memories A large part of the inspiration also comes from a past era, shares Tessa, who began work on this collection a summer ago The designer wanted to create a collection inspired by the quintessential English garden, but also knew that it would have to be highly imaginary and stylised as well.

She started looking at the work of other creatives who she admires; those who had themselves tackled the subject of the garden or countryside "Some, such as Shakespeare and Lewis Carrol had created completely bonkers and mind-bending universes, starkly different from our own Others, such as Stubbs and Capability Brown, had adapted reality in search for the Romantic.

I used bits here and there from all of them to create my own hybrid secret garden." Tread carefully through the garden; for insects, crabs, turtles, and anemone inhabit Tessa's green haven speckled with flowers and dragonflies flitting by. . Source