Protected by high brick walls, a tranquil haven brimming with flowers, fruits and vegetables hums with pollinators as they dance over the plants, masking the noise of passing traffic on the London streets beyond the gates.
The garden lies behind an elegant Edwardian house owned by a professional couple with a young family, who called in designer Graham Lloyd-Brunt in 2018 to transform the walled space into a colourful, flower-filled potager. While the brief was relatively simple, the challenge for Graham would be to deliver the garden on top of a basement swimming pool.
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“In essence, it’s a roof garden, with a whole set of engineering issues to address, and the weight of every plant and feature considered carefully to maintain the integrity of the pool room below,” he explains. The clients asked for a garden packed with colour all year, with beds to grow fruit and vegetables and space in which to relax and dine outside.
In brief:
- What Walled kitchen garden. Where North London.
- Size 20m x 20m.
- Soil Blend of imported topsoil with green-waste compost and spent mushroom compost.
- Climate Temperate with average minimum temperatures of -3.9°C to 6.6°C.
- Hardiness zone USDA 9a.
“When I first arrived, a large area of the garden was paved and it looked soulless,” says Graham. “It’s also south-facing and the ten-foot-high walls create a microclimate, making it uncomfortably hot in the summer. My plan was to introduce trees to offer cool shade and the sense of security and calm you feel when sitting beneath their canopies. The trees were also needed to create privacy, since in places neighbours could see directly into the garden. However, there were only a few square metres where we could site them so their weight and roots wouldn’t affect the pool room below.”
The inspirations for the design were the historic gardens of Sissinghurst and Great Dixter, which are loved by the clients and by Graham, who often visits both gardens from his home in Kent. “The owners like the profuse planting, narrow pathways and rich colour palettes that characterise these gardens,” he explains.
Graham sketched out a design with straight paths leading from the kitchen to the dining area in one direction, and up a short flight of steps to a new garden room, designed by architect Ben Pentreath, and a greenhouse and productive area in the other. “We managed to salvage the original paving for the paths alongside the garden room and in the vegetable area, and used York stone for the new dining terrace, a small patio outside the kitchen and the paths that link them,” explains Graham. The wide spaces between the paths and terraces are filled with planting that ebbs and flows as the seasons turn.
“I didn’t want the whole garden to be seen from the house and included three Dutch double U-shaped espaliered pear trees to make a living screen between the dining area and productive garden,” continues Graham. “These, too, had to be carefully positioned, and I spent many hours poring over the construction drawings and discussing my ideas with the engineers to ensure the garden wouldn’t cause any structural damage.”
Two Portugal laurels (Prunus lusitanica) from Solitair nursery in Belgium, shaped to resemble mature cherry trees, offer evergreen colour and structure along the west wall, while a holm oak (Quercus ilex) screens the dining table, proving shade and year-round interest.
Another oak, nicknamed the ‘bathroom tree’, is positioned near the entrance courtyard to add further privacy, and two Magnolia grandiflora stand sentry beside the little greenhouse in the productive area. “The trees and large shrubs offer much-needed height to what is otherwise a flat plane,” says Graham. “Installing them wasn’t easy, since there’s very limited access.
The landscape contractor had to hire special flat-bed trucks to deliver and crane the trees over the garden walls from the narrow entrance lane.”
Graham has used the oak pergola that frames the kitchen bay window and doors to introduce more shade planting. “The majestic oak columns provide the perfect prop for a twining wisteria, which will eventually create a leafy canopy and cascading racemes of scented, purple flowers in May.”
Clouds of catmint (Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’) spill over the paths alongside the house and productive area, their long-lasting, nectar-rich flowers luring bees in to pollinate the espaliered pears. “I opted for catmint rather than lavender, which becomes woody quite quickly and doesn’t have the same billowing, romantic look. Give it a haircut after the first flush of flowers and it will bloom again,” says Graham.
Against the backdrop of shrubs and trees, carpets of perennials and bulbs provide a carousel of evolving seasonal colour. “Jonquils, the dwarf narcissi ‘February Gold’ and ‘Peeping Tom’ and blue hyacinths deliver colour and scent early in the year, followed by tulips and alliums in late spring,” says Graham.
By early summer the garden is burgeoning with flowers. Irises from the famous Cayeux nursery in Normandy mingle with white valerian (Centranthus ruber ‘Albus’), foxtail lilies (Eremurus) and Phlomis russeliana, while rambling roses scramble over tall obelisks, creating vertical accents above the perennials. Hollyhocks, agapanthus, salvias, phlox and a collection of dahlias in shades of pink, purple and white follow on in late summer, the dahlias often flowering until November.
Autumn highlights include the violet daisies of Aster amellus ‘King George’, with shrubs and climbers, such as Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’, Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus henryana) and the crimson glory vine (Vitis coignetiae), lighting up garden with their cloaks of scarlet, amber and gold foliage. The evergreen structural plants, clipped hornbeam columns and perennial seedheads keep the interest going in winter.
“The finishing touch is a beautiful stone water feature I brought over from Normandy, which adds a gentle, soothing sound close to the dining area. The owners already had the dining table and chairs, and bought metal chairs by the designer Edward Bawden at auction and had them renovated,” says Graham.
The clients are delighted with the overall results “Although it’s not a traditional children’s garden,” says Graham, “the young ones love running around it and learning with Cris, the amazing gardener, how to grow their own fruit and vegetables.”
Like a gift that keeps on giving, the garden offers a sense of wonder and surprise, with waves of foliage and flowers inviting you outside to discover what’s new with each passing day.
Useful information
Find out more about Graham Lloyd-Brunt’s work at lloydbrunt.com