Studio Hummingbird -Designing Gardens to Inspire

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Studio Hummingbird -Designing Gardens to Inspire

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Garden design in Sussex

Studio Hummingbird is a bespoke garden design studio based in Worthing, West Sussex. www.studiohummingbird.com

Victoria Rumens designs beautiful, personal gardens across Sussex, Brighton, Chichester, Horsham and the surrounding areas.

03/11/2026

Did you know? The part of a hellebore you think of as the flower isn't petals at all.

Those five broad "petals" are sepals, the outer layer that protects the bud. The true petals have shrunk to a ring of small green nectar cups in the centre.

Sepals don't drop once the flower is pollinated. They stay on, fading to green or deep plum while the seed ripens underneath. That's why Helleborus × hybridus still looks good weeks after most flowers would have given up.

There's a catch. The flowers nod. Planted at the far end of the lawn, all you see from the house is a clump of leaves looking at its feet.

Which is why I put them where they're seen from indoors all winter: beside the path to the door, in a raised bed by the terrace, or on a bank where you look up into their faces.

Which window do you look out of most in winter? Tell me in the comments.

If you'd like a garden worth looking at from the window all winter, a Discovery Call is the first step:
studiohummingbird.com/book-a-call

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

02/11/2026

"My mum had a lovely greenhouse. Since she passed away, I want one too. It makes me feel close to her." This is what a client once told me on a garden visit.

Some briefs are about space and light. This one was about love, and it has stayed with me.

She's learning to grow veg now, the way her mum did, and she wants to pass it on to her own children.

So the greenhouse could never be an afterthought tucked behind the shed. It needs:
Full light, with the ridge running east to west where the plot allows, so the long side catches the low winter sun.
A spot close to the house and the tap, because in summer you're popping in and out twice a day.
Raised beds beside it at a height small hands can reach, and a path wide enough for a wheelbarrow and a little helper.

Tomatoes, I've found, are wonderful teachers of patience. So are children.

Did someone teach you to grow things? I'd love to hear who.

If your garden has a story it needs to hold, I'd love to hear it. The first step is a Discovery Call:
studiohummingbird.com/book-a-call

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

01/11/2026

Does your garden have somewhere you'd actually sit at the beginning of November?

A bench that catches the last of the afternoon sun. Something solid at your back — a wall, a hedge, a screen — because it's the wind, not the temperature, that sends people indoors. A fire bowl. A blanket kept by the back door.

Most gardens were designed for July, and July is one month out of twelve. Every garden I design has a coat corner, planned in from the first drawing alongside the terrace, the lighting and the planting.

Where's yours — or is that the missing piece?

If you'd like a corner of your garden that feels like a retreat, the first step is a relaxed Discovery Call:
studiohummingbird.com/book-a-call

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

31/10/2026

Before. Concept. During. After.

Swipe through one family garden in Worthing, from the lawn it was to the garden it is now.

Before: one lawn, a garden office at the far end, nothing in between.
Concept: the whole garden drawn from above, with the curving path, the fire bowl and the planting placed before anything was ordered.
During: the path set out exactly where the drawing put it.
After: the frames up, the turf down, the first planting in.

The step most people never see is the second one. It's where the expensive decisions get made, while changing them still costs nothing.

Which picture would you pin to the fridge?

If your garden is the one room you haven't got round to, a Discovery Call is the easy first step:
studiohummingbird.com/book-a-call

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

30/10/2026

The clocks have gone back, and the garden disappears at five o'clock. Unless it's designed not to.

This is a design concept I've been developing, and the lighting was planned with the paving, not added afterwards.

Small lights tucked under each step, so the way back to the house is lit without floodlighting the whole garden (the owls will thank you).
A low line along the deck edge, so you can see where it ends.
A glow from the stones at the water's edge, so the pond still reads after dark.

Light the paths and the places you sit, leave the rest dark, and the garden feels deeper at night, because your eye reads each pool of light as distance.

More on planning garden lighting:
studiohummingbird.com/blog/outdoor-lighting-in-2025

If you'd like evenings outside to start long before summer, a Discovery Call is the first step:
studiohummingbird.com/book-a-call

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

30/10/2026

Closing the gate on October.

Bulbs in. Surveys done. Concept designs on the drawing board, and the grasses have never looked better.

November is drawing season in the studio. The winter months are where next year's gardens are made.

What did October look like in yours?

If you'd like yours to be one of them, the first step is a Discovery Call:
studiohummingbird.com/book-a-call

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

29/10/2026

The best time to plant a tree is about three weeks from now.

November opens bare-root season. Young trees and hedging are lifted from the nursery field while they're dormant and sold without a pot, and they establish better, because they've never spent a summer going round and round inside a plastic tub.

In every garden I design, the tree goes in first — on paper and in the ground. It sets the shade, the privacy and the view from the house, and everything else is placed around it. Plant it this winter and it has a head start on the rest of the build.

If a tree is where your garden should start, let's talk it through. The first step is a Discovery Call:
studiohummingbird.com/book-a-call

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

28/10/2026

What's your biggest garden frustration?

I'll go first: a garden with no evergreen structure. You can have the loveliest perennials in Sussex, but if nothing holds the picture together from November to March, it's bare ground for five months and a lot of looking out of the window wishing.

Everyone's is different. Some people are at war with a lawn. Some can't get anything to grow in the shade. Some have a garden that looks perfectly fine and just doesn't feel right, and can't say why.

Most of these turn out to be one problem: a garden that grew in bits instead of being designed as a whole. Tell me yours below.

If any of those sounds like yours, let's talk it through. The first step is a Discovery Call:
studiohummingbird.com/book-a-call

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

27/10/2026

A tree is the biggest design decision in most gardens, and the one that's hardest to undo.

Five things I weigh before I place one:

1. Its size at ten years. I draw every tree at its ten-year spread, so it never outgrows its place.
2. Every season. Blossom, autumn colour, bark: one season of interest isn't enough for something you'll see every day.
3. Multi-stem or single. Multi-stem gives character from the first day and a lighter shade.
4. The right place. Shade where you sit, a screen from the window that overlooks you, a frame for the view from the kitchen.
5. Planted first. Bare-root in winter, before the rest of the build, so it has a head start.

My shortlist for Sussex gardens: *Amelanchier*, crab apple 'Evereste', multi-stem birch, *Acer griseum*.

In a whole-garden design the tree is placed first, and the terrace, paths and planting are arranged around it.

If you'd like that decision made with care, the first step is a Discovery Call:
studiohummingbird.com/book-a-call

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

27/10/2026

Four gardens. Which one would you walk into first?

Wild & Natural: grasses moving, bees in the poppies, a gravel path you don’t mind wandering off.

Contemporary Calm: clipped evergreens, a smooth wall, water you hear before you see it.

Romantic Cottage: roses, scent, and a cup of tea that goes cold because you forgot it was there.

The Kitchen Garden: raised beds, rosemary by the door, supper picked an hour before it’s eaten.

Most people are a mix, and that’s fine. A good design usually starts from one and borrows from another.

If you’d like to find out properly, my Garden Style Quiz takes two minutes, all pictures:
studiohummingbird.com/garden-style-quiz

Tell me in the comments: which did you pick first?

Studio Hummingbird | Designing Gardens to Inspire
www.studiohummingbird.com | [email protected]

Address

Dereham

Telephone

+441903535664

Website

http://www.studiohummingbird.com/, https://studio-hummingbird.moxieapp.com/public/studio-hummingbird/discovery-call-30-m

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