Location: Richmond

Client: Private, Residential

Status: Completed

Project: City garden

“The camellia has to stay”.

And quite right too. Carbon dioxide, oxygen and light have conspired to create beatiful twisted woody stems adorned with clouds of crimson red blooms.

An already installed neighbours fence gave the opportunity to plant Hydrangea petiolaris to eventually clothe and provide year-round interest while a bespoke, low level, chestnut post-and-rail hurdle was built to decline the advances of ‘Muddles’, a very energetic Working Cocker Spaniel who’s enthusiasm for stones would make my dentist squirm.

The planting was wrapped around a central seating area, with structural domes of Taxus and Pittosporum mixed with the verdent greens of Asplenium, Polypodium, Festuca and Sesleria, and all interspersed with a variety of colourful herbaceous plants to suit light conditions and provide year round interest.

Muddles and I still regularly meet to contemplate stones.