Robert Webber in one part of the two part design team of the Hegarty Webber Partnership. He and Leslie Hegarty (the other half) create gardens in the beautiful southwest of England.

Robert:

*As a child, I visited Sissinghurst Castle in Kent, UK with my parents and met Vita Sackville – West. ‘The Shillingses’ I believe she called us fee paying visitors. (It was pre decimal coinage!) She was working in a border near the tower in jodpurs and a tweed hacking jacket. It was in her old age and her cheeks were quite weather beaten. But she was genial and reaching up
to a Quince on the wall picked a fruit and handed it to me. Of course I didn’t know how she would tower over gardening in the UK and I didn’t keep the fruit. Well it would be a bit wizened by now. But although I was very young I remember the meeting most distinctly!

Sissinghurst image by Ursula Haigh

**I exist on strength five continental blend coffee beans.

***I have just contrived to DRIVE OVER (!!) one of the garden designer’s most useful tools – my digital pocket camera. Don’t ask the details – its too embarrassing! My new one has the dimensions bar the depth of my credit card and my credit card bill is considerably deeper as a result!

Tool – an antique onion hoe, a hand held hoe, useful for just about anything
short of pruning.

antique onion hoe from old garden tools.

Garden – The William Kent landscape at Rousham House, Oxfordshire, UK for
its cool restraint.

Photograph by Clive Nichols

Book – The RHS 4 Volume Dictionary of Gardening – its all in there.

Just about every and anywhere, from garden design magazines, through the weekend papers, rural and urban landscape, to furniture and home décor, pattern and even fashion!

I keep a huge battery of filing cabinets and am on my 20th scrapbook for image related stuff I find difficult to file.

But often the best place to store the image is your head. It comes out when it is really relevant

Both Lesley Hegarty, my design partner, and I were fortunate to train with the great Christopher Pickard. And one thing he always emphasized to us was the importance of generosity in space and scale in anything you designed.