Gardening comes naturally to Londoner John Tebbs. As a child he spent countless hours in his father’s vegetable garden, which paved the way for a career in gardening–first as a designer, later as purveyor of an online garden shop called The Garden Edit.
Tebbs has operated Finch Gardening for the last fifteen years, offering personalized design and gardening to his London clientele. But gardening is slow during the winter months: rather than wallow in the gray winter, Tebbs used his downtime to build a virtual garden shop.
It took Tebbs nine months to curate the collection, which features hand-forged Dutch tools, American-made ceramic planters, elegant watering cans, and Swedish-made boot scrapers. The shop is stocked with hand-picked functional pieces, but The Garden Edit also celebrates the artfulness of the garden. Tebbs explains: “With things like the tools, I sell the secateurs that I use as I know they are good products and can stand up to the job. Other things, like the Carl Aubí¶ck watering cans, are chosen because they elevate a functional thing like a watering can into a work of art.”
Photographs by Jessica MacCormick.
Above: A glimpse of objects from The Garden Edit’s collection.
Above: Ceramic planters, available for sale, on an outdoor table in Tebbs’s garden.
Above: The Large Meteor Planter in Natural is made by American ceramicist Pilar Wiley. The planters (several different sizes and color variations are available on the site) are wheel-thrown and made from altered stoneware with irregular indentations; £120.
Above: The Hourglass Vase was designed in 1948 by Bauhaus-trained designer Carl Aubí¶ck. His vases are crafted from brass and left with a black patina; £250.
Above: Perhaps the most elegant watering can we’ve ever seen: the Brass and Cane Watering Can is handmade from polished and patinated brass and features a cane-wrapped handle. This lavish indoor watering can costs £895 and was also designed by Austrian designer Carl Aubí¶ck.
Above: While we’re on the subject of luxury, let’s turn our attention to the Faceted Platinum Wall Vase made by Austrian potter Matthias Kaiser; £245. The three-times fired vase is glazed using a mixture of feldspar, reed and wood ash, and finished in platinum. The vase comes with hardware for mounting.
Above: For the more practically minded, the Hand Bulb Planter (£49.50) by Sneeboer & Zn is made from stainless steel and features extra sharp edges, making it the ultimate planting tool (and one to pass down for generations to come).
(For more, see our round-up of 10 Easy Pieces: Bulb Planters.)
Above: The Vogeli Bird Bath by American designer Vasse Vaught is handcrafted from bronze using vintage machines and tools in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia; £90.
(For more from Vaught, see 10 Easy Pieces: Bird Feeders.)
Above: Several pieces of artwork by Alicia Galer, an English artist and textile designer based in London, are available from The Garden Edit. This one, the Kew Cacti House, is drawn on paper using oil pastels, acrylic paints, and watercolor pencils; £150.
Above: Back to the basics: this sturdy Boot Scraper by Iris Hantverk is made in Sweden by visually impaired craftsmen; £28.
Above: John Tebbs in his London garden.
For more luxury from London, see Steal This Look: A Glamorous London Kitchen From a Designer with “Shit Loads of Talent” on Remodelista.
Have we inspired a shopping spree? See all of our Shopper’s Diary posts to further your temptation.
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