Contemporary English garden design

Ultra-chic contemporary garden design

This ultra-chic contemporary English garden is built in a stunning series of loops and curls that twist through the landscape, blending contemporary style with long-lasting planting

Garden design profile

DESIGNER: Ian Kitson
PLACE: East Sussex.
emailing amanda@amandapatton.co.uk
SIZE: Designed area, including renovated orchard, is 80m x 40m
STYLE: Contemporary garden on a slope, shaped by bold, sinuous hard landscaping linking a series of viewpoints

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 Contemporary English garden design

Approaching this handsome Georgian manor house in Sussex, England, you expect to see an English garden of similar grandeur, featuring perhaps clipped yew hedges, lawns, allées and formal pools. What’s revealed, as you step through the door, is a complete surprise: a bold, contemporary garden design, which snakes its way down the grassy slope through a series of paved and enclosed seating areas to a large natural pool and, beyond that, a swathe of wildflower meadow, which leads onto a small orchard.

Garden design 

The south-facing garden looks out to a panoramic view of this part of the South Downs, a landscape of folded chalk hills that presents a tapestry of light and dark greens formed by pastureland and clumps of native trees, and incised by a network of lines created by man-made hedges and flint walls.

When designer Ian Kitson first saw how the garden, he decided that ‘the garden design had to develop a dialogue between the garden and the larger landscape, but it also had to have its own character’. He believed it needed to stand up to the surrounding landscape and the house and say: ‘Look at me, I’m beautiful too.’

The creation of the  contemporary English garden was an intrinsic part of the plan owners Geoff and Anne Shaw had to give a new lease of life to the whole property.When they bought the house in 2006, it needed complete renovation, and the garden was just a grassy slope dotted with trees and shrubs, leading to a tennis court. They gave Ian carte blanche with the design, having discussed their love of vibrant colours and a wish that the garden be attractive to wildlife.

Initially, they wanted to keep the tennis court, so Ian’s original design introduced a walled, sunken garden where they could sit and soak up the wider view without having to look at the court. When the Shaws
decided to forego it, Ian created a serpentine pool in its footprint.

The planting was provided by garden designer Julie Toll who, like Ian, took clues from the landscape. ‘I wanted a tapestry effect of grasses and perennials to link to the meadows,’ she says. The species chosen had to thrive on the chalk soil and had to be drought tolerant.

Central to the  contemporary garden design is a series of stopping places with their own seats, where the owners can enjoy different views on their journey down to the pool and wildflower meadow beyond, starting with a terrace of Cumbrian stone and brick outside the back door. ‘Four years on,’ designer Ian says, ‘it has become what I had hoped it would be: something that enriches the experience of living there, rather than something you might occasionally want to go into.’

Garden design: Arches and contours

The language of the garden design borrows from the surrounding landscape and is one of sweeps and curves, including great arching blockwork walls and organically shaped paths.

WHORLING REFLECTIONS The crescent shape of the hardwood decking disappears

into the water at its furthest point (above), and echoes the pattern created by a cluster of trees on the hilltop across the valley.

TWISTS ANDTURNS The grass path through the wildflower turf

provides a winding circuit (above) and is wide enough to lie down

and enjoy the sensation of being in a wildflower meadow.

WAVYWALLS Curving flint walls that enclose the

sunken garden (in the foreground) and part of the

garden’s central path make a visual and cultural link

to the man-made enclosures and sheep pens of the

wider landscape (below).

ORGANIC PATHWAYS The central path to the lake

widens in a curve to allow for seating (above). The

pointing between each piece of Cotswold stone is sunk

by an inch to highlight their irregular shapes.

Contemporary English garden design

1. Golden Achillea ‘Moonshine’ and grasses such as bronze Carex flagellifera are repeated through this massed planting, which creates a bank of colour and texture from the waterside up the grassy slope.

2. This elder tree was retained to provide a vertical backdrop to the horizontal plane of the pool and to link with the native trees in the valley beyond the garden.

3. The south-facing loungers on the hardwood deck mark the end of the journey to this part of the garden. A mown grass path behind the pool defines its organic shape, and creates another weaving circuit to the

bottom of the garden.

4. The free-flowing shape of the iroko deck, which floats above the water on a wooden substructure, required that each piece of wood had to be cut individually.

5. An arc of umbrella mulberry trees create strong vertical interest, their horizontal forms allowing views through to the landscape beyond while also linking visually with the pool.

6. Salvia nemerosa ‘Caradonna’ was chosen to add verticality and, with several of the grasses, extend the

seasonal interest, as the architectural seedheads are left standing throughout winter.

7. Grasses such as Stipa gigantea, Anemanthele lessoniana and Carex flagellifera help blend the garden ‘designed’ planting with the landscape beyond and, in the wind, add movement and grace to the garden design scheme.

8. This hardwood bench has its back to the boundary hedge that screens a public path, and offers a view across the full width of the pool and beyond to the meadows where sheep graze.

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CONTEMPORARY CHIC

Seating solutions

The seating is a mixture of teak chairs and benches by Barlow Tyrie and bold, black woven seats in weatherproof synthetic materials, which complement the clean lines of the garden design

SUNKEN SPOT This part of the sunken garden was designed to be large enough to hold a dining table (right). Low clipped box encloses a simple planting of Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ and Alchemilla erythropoda.

WOVEN POD The black basket seat in

synthetic rattan is called Neptune and

is made by Go Modern (www.gomodern.co.uk).

It provides a secluded spot to read a book,

surrounded by Calamintha nepeta.

TRADITIONALTEAK A table outside the back door provides an ideal spot for morning coffee. The vibrant planting, including Rosa Fellowship and Geum coccineum ‘Werner Arends’, links to the pinks and reds of the interior.

DECKED OUT The decking was designed to fit the two loungers - Savannah by BarlowTyrie (www.teak.com) - which look back to the massed perennials and grasses planting on the lower half of the grass slope (below).

THE DESIGNER

Ian Kitson is a chartered landscape architect with a degree in architecture and a postgraduate diploma in the

conservation of historic parks and gardens. He has designed gardens and open spaces for a wide range of clients, from private owners to local authorities and private/public institutions. His work is marked by a precise but free-flowing approach. His practice is based in central London. Tel: +44 (0)7742 301799.

PHOTOGRAPHS MARIANNE MAJERUS WORDS ANNE GATTI

ILLUSTRATION/NEIL GOWER
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