The Laurent Perrier Garden - Silver Gilt

Silver gilt garden by Jinny Blom. This is a romantic contemporary French themed garden, exploring garden plants suitable for chalk or calcareous soils. It utilises styles of building and materials evocative of northern France with the emphasis on irises and peonies with stylised meadow planting.

Garden description

Laurent-Perrier looked back to its roots in the chalky landscape of Champagne to create this French Show Garden. The garden celebrates how, from a seemingly weak and unyielding chalk landscape, a spectacular richness of growth can flourish and be transformed into fine wines in Champagne. The garden only includes plants that are chalk and lime tolerant and structures that are deftly crafted from natural chalk materials.

Soft, delicate planting, abundant with roses, irises, peonies and gentle wild meadow-flowers, is set within the formal structures of chalk rock (Totternhoe Clunch) walls, crafted by artist David Wilson. The garden combines the spontaneous, herbaceous planting with classic French stylistic statements, such as box-headed limes (Tilia).

Romantic colours have been carefully considered: pale creamy whites, blush and coppery tones are present around the terrace, deepening to clarets and pale blues in the meadow.

A key feature of the garden is a white metal-framed Gloriette echoing, in skeletal form, the undeniably French roofline of a hypothetical Chateau. An L-shaped pool represents a 'vivier' or typically French spring-fed trout pool.

Plant list: (click on any of the green links below to read more about the plant and to add to your own 'Plants I want' list)

Lime Perimeter
Tilia
Buxus sempervirens
Clematis flammula
Cydonia oblonga
Ilex crenata
Fig (Ficus carica)
Mespilus germanica
Lonicera periclymenum 'Belgica'
Paeonia delavayi var. lutea
Rosa glauca
Rosa 'Rambling Rector'
Rosa banksiae 'Lutea'
Viburnum opulus 'Roseum'
Deschampsia caespitosa
Geranium phaeum 'Samobor'
Hesperis matronalis var. albiflora

Pergola
Rosa banksiae 'Lutea'

Pool
Iris laevigata var. alba
Nymphaea alba
Typha angustifolia

Paeony Bed
Geranium sylvaticum 'Album'
Iris 'Beverly Sills'
Iris 'Goodbye Heart'
Paeonia 'Duchesse de Nemours'
Paeonia 'Sarah Bernhardt'
Viola cornuta Alba Group

Lower Border
Buxus sempervirens
Deschampsia cespitosa
Dryopteris filix-mas
Iris sibirica 'White Swirl'
Veronica gentianoides 'Tissington White'
Zantedeschia aethiopica
Tulipa 'Maureen' or 'Purissima'

External Border
Rosa banksiae 'Lutea'
Rosa glauca
Rosa 'Dioressence'
Alcea ficifolia - foliage only
Deschampsia cespitosa
Dryopteris filix-mas
Echium vulgare
Hesperis matronalis
Iris 'Chartreuse Ruffles'
Lilium candidum
Lychnis flos-cuculi

Meadow
Fraxinus ornus - multistem
Cercis siliquastrum - multistem
Rosa 'Reine des Violettes'
Rosa 'Dames de Chenonceau'
Rosa x odorata 'Mutabilis'
Lonicera periclymenum 'Belgica'
Buxus sempervirens
Aconitum 'Spark's Variety'
Allium 'Purple Sensation'
Aquilegia alpina
Aquilegia vulgaris 'Nivea'
Aquilegia 'Ruby Port'
Aquilegia 'White Star'
Astrantia major
Astrantia major 'Roma'
Centranthus ruber 'Albus'
Cirsium rivulare 'Atropurpureum'
Delphinium 'Tiddles'
Delphinium 'Mystique'
Delphinium 'Gillian Dallas'
Deschampsia cespitosa
Digitalis purpurea f. albiflora
Geranium 'Birch Lilac'
Geranium phaeum var. lividum
Geranium pratense 'Mrs Kendal Clarke'
Gladiolus byzantinus
Hesperis matronalis var. albiflora
Iris 'Pink Angel'
Iris 'Secret Melody'
Iris 'Success Fou'
Iris sibirica 'White Swirl'
Lilium candidum
Lilium martagon
Nectaroscordum siculum
Verbascum phoenicium 'Violetta'
Veronica gentianoides 'Tissington White'
Papaver orientale 'Patty's Plum'
Papaver rhoeas