Joyful Exuberance
An unusual brief at this charming Victorian property; how to incorporate a recently purchased slither of field into an existing garden. Still laid to grass this offered a huge blank canvas on which to create a new design. The client admired borders in the naturalistic style of planting by Piet Oudolf and whilst we were confident it would sit well with the landscape, it would also need to compliment the traditional Victorian property and garden. To this end we designed a classical layout for the borders - four rectangular beds surrounding a central circular lawn. The proportions were large (125m2 of borders) to provide a strong feature that would not be dwarfed by the open space and enable the planting to utilise large swathes of plants that would be viewed easily from the distance of the house.
A strong contrasting colour palette of pinks, purples, blues, yellows and oranges helped with the visibility and ensured the colours would not get bleached out in the strong summer sunshine. Colourful and uplifting, the plants were not only chosen for their colour, but for their ability to survive in the heavy clay soil the field provided and offer a long season of interest and winter structure, no mean feat! With the addition of a bulb layer - Chinodoxa, Narcissus and Tulips - the season of interest starts in early spring whilst the perennials and grasses are in their infancy. Early summer enjoys Sibirica Iris, Amsonia and Phlomis followed by the grasses of Deschampsia and Panicum combining with the strong colours of Persicaria and Heleniums. An exuberance of texture and colour.
