Category: Design
As promised for the third in my week’s posts celebrating my 500th post we go down to Hertfordshire to explore Tom Stuart-Smith’s garden designs at his own home and the home of his sister. The family home at Serge Hill is surrounded by mature planting. The new gardens designed by T S-S are within its grounds. When these gardens open they are very popular with thousands of visitors making an appearance. It looks very busy and taking photos is difficult as the gardens are only open for one day each year as part of the National Garden Scheme, so people find it in the famous Yellow Book. The friendly herd of Guernsey calves greeted every visitor. We wandered through the gardens around the house which had been there a long time but the influence of T S-S can be seen.
In the gardens at Tom’s and his…
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I’ve been writing about my recent trip to Andalucia, and in my last post covered the day we spent in Granada and especially the palaces of the Generalife and Alhambra. One of the powerful impressions of this visit was how water can be used to enhance a particular feeling or ambience of a space, so I took a couple of short videos to demonstrate this. The first is from the Generalife and is of a series of fountains in a fairly narrow court or garden. The feeling I get is of an active space, one which you’re encouraged to move through, onwards to the palace…. would you agree?
The second sound is of the Patio of the Myrtles in the Alhambra’s Nasrid Palace; a simpler, larger space where the barest burble of water adds to the restful atmosphere, and as I said in my previous post, the space is almost like an ‘outdoor cathedral’ in the way that sound is softened… enjoy…
Old School Gardener
Balfron Tower is now one of the stately homes of England – a National Trust attraction no less. Recently it’s hosted an arts season, a Shakespeare play, and it’s provided live-work accommodation for twenty-five artists since 2008. And all that, to be honest, makes me sad because once Balfron was simply housing for the local people who needed it – although its size and style and big name architect did always get it special attention.
Photograph taken in 1969 showing original concrete chimneys to service tower boilers (from LBTH, Brownfield Estate, Poplar Conservation Management Plan)
The site for what is currently the Brownfield Estate, in which Balfron is located, had been identified as early as 1951. The now truncated St Leonard’s Road was one of Poplar’s principal streets; the area as a whole comprised a dense grid of old and substandard terraced housing. The land was acquired in 1959 just as…
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Congratulations to Malc on his 500th post!
To celebrate reaching 500 posts in my Greenbenchramblings adventures I thought I would create a week of posts about my favourite garden designers, Piet Oudolf and Tom Stuart-Smith. I have featured examples of their gardens several times already but these are special gardens. The Piet Oudolf garden here is his latest creation in Somerset and the Tom Stuart-Smith gardens are his own garden and the one he designed for his sister who lives just yards away.
The garden, called the Oudolf Field sits within the grounds of the Hauser and Wirth Gallery in the Somerset village of Bruton. This 1.5 acre garden was only planted this year so we visited in its very early stages. The garden is better described as a perennial meadow than his usual tall prairie. The plants are generally shorter so that more of each border and the garden as a whole can be seen at…
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I love this planting scheme- simple combination of Alliums and Pony Tail grass (Stipa tenuissima)
Old School Gardener
Living willow structure by Bonnie Gale
I love the use of space in this garden. It also looks like something you can create from pallets and other recycled materials and offers a very effective and, I think, beautiful answer to maximising growing space in small gardens.
Old School Gardener
This looks like a simple and strong creation using wooden pallets – and some other timber?
Old School Gardener
My old friend Richard has built himself a great little shed from pallet and other ‘skip wood’. Here it is, along with a picture of his allotment in Bristol. Just shows what you can do with a recycling turn of mind!
Old School Garden 