The front and back borders of this spacious country garden outside Tisbury were overgrown and muddled. My brief was to redesign them to create a more cohesive look with a muted colour palette of white, green, pale pink and mauve.
The front border was massively overgrown and the stone wall completely covered with ivy. Everything was taken out except for one white fuchsia, the overgrown pittosporum by the entrance was cut back and all the ivy removed from the wall. As this border is shady for most of the day shrubs and perennials were chosen for a woodland effect with skimmias, hellebores, a second white fuchsia and astrantias in the middle of the border. Pulmonaria , tiarella and geraniums sanguineum were used to edge and two types of foxglove planted at the back by the wall.
The two borders leading up to the front door had been planted with choisya ternata and variegated aucuba which had grown too large and were now dominating the space.
The new design uses hebe rakaiensis pruned into green balls to provide structure, softened by a mixture of pulmonaria, geranium sanguineum and heuchera to provide interest throughout the year.
The back raised borders had also been planted with various different types of shrubs and perennials resulting in a lack of identity and cohesion.
The new design kept existing shrubs such as euonymous and potentilla and added hydrangea, cistus plus two new iron obelisks planted with clematises to create height. Irises, thalictrum, lavender, dianthus and geraniums completed the design with alchemilla mollis and erigeron karvanskianos to edge.
