We wanted to combine a very meadow like feel with delivering the organised space needed to grow productive crops in this garden in London. At the heart of the garden, large interlocking Corten steel containers form a series of raised beds for the growing of vegetables and fruit. They create a focus and structure equivalent almost to a contemporary parterre, in the way in which they divide the space into beds which form a pattern. The ‘meadow’ planting floats through this grid of raised beds as a soft contrast to the rectilinear structure. The base of the planting scheme is of violets and wild strawberries, out of which, in the spring, burst a wonderful array of tulips and associated spring bulbs. In the summer it is suffused with lupins, peonies and aconitum which become the second wave of the ‘meadow-like’ planting, flooding through and enveloping the whole of the central part of this garden. The garden is punctuated with topiary and held in at the edges by lovely, big loose cloud hedges of yew. Pleached pears provide fruit and further enclosure for the garden at a higher level, giving some privacy between this garden and the next, which is always appreciated in an urban space. The garden rises gently from the terrace by the house to the greenhouse, lawn and enclosing hedge at the back; an angle which helps to present a perfect picture of the garden from the house. It’s viewed through the wonderful sliding glass panels of the open plan kitchen and living room. The divisions have been dissolved between the outside and the inside and the two spaces have magically become one.
