The Daily Telegraph Garden

By Arabella Lennox-Boyd. The theme of The Daily Telegraph Garden is simplicity. Hard elements have been reduced to a minimum, while restrained planting and water come to the fore, encouraging reflection of light and contemplation. The garden was inspired by the purity and restraint found in Japanese gardens.

The garden is a contrast of vertical and horizontal elements; of planting and water; of hard and soft.

A stone-edged, rectangular pool of water fills the space of the garden, and is softened by planting on two sides. A serpentine path of stone, crossed by ribbons of white waterlilies (Nymphaea alba), links the front of the garden to the planting at the back, and leads the eye towards a bamboo thicket.

The pool is punctuated by sculptural rocks, half submerged in the pool, and four trees that frame the views and lend a sense of permanence to the garden, and a sense of age and height to the composition. The largest of these trees is Pterocarya fraxinifolia chosen for its association with water.

The plants in the garden were selected for their strong visual association and effect. Simplicity and precision are key to the planting design. Large green leaves (including Gunnera), grey leaves, vertical bamboo and iris, rounded shrubs and roses create a rhythm.

Planting list: 

Taxus baccata	Alchemilla mollis	Amelanchier lamarckii
Buxus sempervirens	Gunnera manicata	Phyllostachys aurea
Miscanthus sinensis 'Morning Light'	Soleirolia soleirolii	Spiraea nipponica 'Snowmound'
Viburnum opulus 'Roseum'	Zantedeschia aethiopica 'Green Goddess'	Nymphaea 'Gonnere'
Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald Gaiety'	Athyrium niponicum var. pictum	Camassia leichtlinii
Hebe subalpina	Pterocarya fraxinifolia	Allium stipitatum 'Mount Everest'
Sagina subulata	Hedera helix 'Light Fingers'	Rosa 'Evelyn'
Spiraea x vanhouttei 'Pink Ice'	Campanula poscharskyana	Iris sibirica
Hakonechloa macra	Pyrus salicifolia	Osmanthus heterophyllus
Cornus kousa