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Beautiful Walled Country Garden
By Hertfordshire based garden designer Judy Shardlow of Heartwood Garden Design. This garden was designed to create a relaxing traditional English garden and in particular to create a warm enclosed patio area close to the house.
Stunning yellow quartz paddlestones were used to build sweeping curved walls, designed to draw the eye around the garden and to disguise the relatively shallow depth of the garden in relation to the house.
Particular features include two flights of steps build into the curves of the overall design. The first flight of steps leads from an attractive warm sandstone patio and planted beds up towards the upper garden. In this area a stunning multi-stemmed Amelanchier sits within a gravel border planted with Lavender, and is attractively up-lit at night.
The designer of this garden Judy Shardlow, explains: “The warm colours of the paddlestone walls were used as part of the planting palette. The coppery tints of Anemanthele lessoniana and the deep purple of Phormium ‘All Black’ as well as pretty green Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’ worked beautifully with the colour and texture of the wall.”
The walls also provided an opportunity to create the restful sound of water near to the seating area, using a water blade onto pebbles alongside the client’s own sculpture. The dampness of the soil close to the water feature provided a perfect opportunity for pretty evergreen plants include Acorus gramineus 'Aurea' and delicate fern Asplenium trichomanes.
One of the key structural plants used in the garden was vertically trained Ceanothus. Trained against the dominant brick wall, the Ceanothus will knit together over time to create an attractive evergreen backdrop to the garden, screening the dominant brick wall. Ceanothus is well suited to growing against a sheltered warm wall on a well drained slope, and flowers beautifully in June.
In shady areas of the garden beautiful a wooden curved seat was built into the wall with a backdrop of low Acer dissectum and pretty evergreen plants including Fatsia japonica ‘Spiders Web’, Helleborus ‘Anna’s Red’, Lamium maculatum ‘Beacon Silver’ and Euphorbia amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’ were used to create year round interest. Judy explains that: “The Hellebores have pink tints to the foliage as well as stunning deep pink flowers in early spring, so there is still lots of interest even after the flowers have faded.”
The Hellebores were particularly successful in creating a splash of interest and colour through the winter months. This garden won a BALI (British Association of Landscaping Industries) award for construction in 2016.
Walkway Square and stepping stones:
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Back Wall:
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Full/Partial Shade Sloping Border and Wooden Seat:
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Middle Garden: Sunny Sloping Border and Gravel Areas:
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Middle Garden: low hedging:
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Boundary Fence Climbers and Area:
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Patio Beds (curve/straight /half circle):
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Designed by Judy Shardlow