I am very fond of this garden. When I first saw it there were two undistinguished houses on the site. My clients knocked them down and commissioned a very interesting modern house from Neil Choudhury Architects. The rest was to be garden.
I had a stern conversation with my client warning her exactly how much she was taking on but, to her enormous credit, she was unmoved and since then has looked after it beautifully.
There is a stream running along the perimeter of the garden which we diverted into an enlarged pond. From there the ground rises so I put in a lot of cast concrete steps and ramps (working out the levels was quite challenging!) to make cascades of planting that fall away from the house.
There is a beautiful greenhouse (made by Robert Grace of W.G.Grace – a company I have used quite a lot for hand made greenhouses) and a kitchen garden that makes my client very happy indeed.
And also very tired – interesting gardens are seldom low maintenance.
