We’re a dedicated team of location-obsessives at Fresh Locations. We make it easy for our clients to search for their perfect shoot location and we’re quick to spot trends amongst the requests we get. This spring, we’ve been fascinated by the types of gardens we’re being asked for -overgrown spaces, secret gardens and tumbledown orangeries.

Of course, we’ve delivered, supplying perfect green spaces for everything from fashion shoots to music promotions – for some of the most highly regarded names in the business.

At Fresh Locations, our location library can offer meandering paths through dappled groves of silver birch such as at ‘Homestead, Kent’ or vistas of flower-studded meadows like the ones at ‘Wallingford, Oxfordshire’. We can provide the charming seclusion of gardens bordered by ancient brick walls or yew hedges, such as ‘Twyford House, Oxfordshire’ and ‘Old Rectory, Surrey’ – the sort of places, heavy with history, that take on a truly magical quality at dawn and dusk. And we can also offer the beauty of ruination, whether it’s a deserted folly like the one at ‘Wimbledon Manor, SW19’, or a picturesque derelict greenhouse – we have several fading beauties along these lines, including ‘Saunderton, Buckinghamshire’ and ‘Burley House, Shropshire’. And this trend merges with another hot garden look – the tropical jungle – in our ‘Palm Lodge, SE26’ garden where you can get lost among the lush leafy greenery.

But what is behind the requests for wild-at-heart gardens that we’re being asked for…? Trends don’t exist in isolation, and the location searches we’re getting are part of a much bigger picture. In the gardening world, the prevailing trend is for meadow-like planting, the so-called New Perennial approach. It was made popular by influential Dutch garden designer, Piet Oudolf. He’s the horticultural talent behind New York’s Highline and the 2012 Olympic Park in London. This look is all about wild, naturalistic planting which celebrates the beauty of the whole plant life cycle – not just the flower - so even in the death the forms of whippy grasses and sculptural seed head are left to be enjoyed, encouraging the overgrown look.

But like all prevailing trends, this idea extends beyond horticulture. The wilder gardens that our clients are asking for are part of a growing aesthetic that’s about abundance, mystery and maximalism, ideas that are taking the place of the minimalism, utility and austerity that went before. The fashion world saw a major sea change when Alessandro Michele took the helm at Gucci back in 2015. He shook up the fashion world with his mix of overblown florals and seventies disco decadence. It’s a look that’s about glamour, fantasy, mystery and, above all, escapism. A much-needed antidote to the troubling times we live in.

The Gucci look captured people’s imagination and this wild and romantic style began to fan out, touching many areas of culture and design and bringing us to the point we’re at now, when astute art directors want garden locations that match the mood of the times, whether that’s wild and rampant, or secret and romantic, or places that are tumbling down in the most picturesque ways.  As ever, our website makes it easy to search our gorgeous green spaces, or talk to our expert team via the website pop-up or over the phone and we’ll guide you to the perfect wild-at-heart green space for your Spring/Summer shoot…