Elevation drawing of the new planting at the Benugo's café in Queen Mary's Gardens

Regent’s Park café front garden

Elevation drawing for café front garden
South elevation drawing for the café front garden

Queen Mary’s Gardens café, at the heart of Regent’s Park, is a popular place year round, and its front garden is a key part of the experience. Whether you’re coming in for a drink while out for a stroll on a bright spring morning, or a cyclist on a break during a wet winter training day, or a theatre-goer on a summer evening – you will be walking past or perhaps even through the garden before going in. And for any visitor entering Queen Mary’s Gardens from the western end, this corner site is a main marker on their journey around the park, and it sets the tone for their experience of the wider space. So, whatever the season, the planting has to work hard: it should invite you as you walk into the gardens, make the café’s terrace feel private enough but not enclosed, and generally be in keeping with the scale of the space. Continue reading “Regent’s Park café front garden”

Delos re-imagined: where the past meets the future

June 2021 – Until last month, the mention of Delos would have taken me back to my childhood history book, with pictures of the avenue of lions illustrating accounts of the Delian league’s flawed aspirations to peace. Now, another image superimposes itself over the old one: that of the Priest’s House, in Sissinghurst, overlooking Dan Pearson’s new magical interpretation of Vita Sackville-West’s and Harold Nicolson’s original vision for their Delos garden.

Continue reading “Delos re-imagined: where the past meets the future”

Bringing New Zealand to Islington

The Mediterranean garden, in Kew, is home to numerous New Zealand plants
The Mediterranean garden, Kew, home to numerous New Zealand plants

This new planting scheme for a garden in Islington is a tale of two hemispheres, on two counts. First, although it is based in North London, it incorporates a range of plants native to New Zealand, where the owners spent their childhood. Second, it also has two distinct environments: one side faces south, it is sunny and warm, with well-drained soil, while the other faces north, is in the shade, and the soil remains reliably moist.

 

Continue reading “Bringing New Zealand to Islington”

Potager Colbert: rebirth of a lost kitchen garden

Playfulness at Potager Colbert: an old coffee pot and stove among the dahlias
Playfulness at Potager Colbert: an old coffee pot and stove among the dahlias

When a digger nearly fell over the high retaining wall overlooking the overgrown dell just down from the main front garden, the new owners of Chateau Colbert realised there could be more to the long, unkempt site on the western side of the estate.

Mickael Vincent, head gardener at the Potager Colbert, who is taking me around the garden on a bright morning in late August, says earlier plans showed there had been a kitchen garden here, but that before that incident in 2012, there were few signs left of its former glory.

Continue reading “Potager Colbert: rebirth of a lost kitchen garden”