UK Garden Tour: A Small, Lush Retreat With Secluded Seating Areas

Photos by Joanne Bernstein

Garden at a Glance
Who lives here: A couple with grown-up children
Location: London, UK
Property: A Victorian terrace
Garden dimensions: 6.5m x 16 metres
Designer: Joanne Bernstein of Joanne Bernstein Garden Design

One of the homeowners had tried to create a Piet Oudolf feel, but he still had the idea the garden should have a lawn. It was also hard to get away from the domination of the unused garden building at the back.

“The first thing I said was, ‘Do you still use this building?’” says Bernstein. “I suggested it would be transformative to remove it, as they would gain so much space, and it was occupying the sunniest spot.”

The couple had planting beds around the perimeter then small patches of grass and a narrow slate path running down the middle that was splitting the space in two. “If you divide a small garden like this, you emphasise the smallness,” says Bernstein. “If you make it a uniform whole, it feels so much bigger.

“I said to them, ‘You could do away with all this,’” she says. “They were stunned – it had never occurred to them they could get rid of the building or the lawn.”

As well as stealing the sunniest patch, the garden building had been obscuring the view. “Behind is an old cemetery that has some lovely trees in it,” says Bernstein. “Now there’s the borrowed landscape that’s much more present in the garden.”

Bernstein put in a new shed to take care of tools storage. “That’s now screened by a new, multi-stemmed Aralia elata tree,” she says.

The fencing at the back is new, because the building had previously formed the boundary. “It was the owners’ idea to use those spaced timbers so the light permeates it,” says Bernstein. “Behind is the cemetery wall, so they’re not having to screen anything ugly. The evergreen star jasmine [Trachelospermum jasminoides] growing up it will become lush and dense.”

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Key to the new scheme was removing the straight path. Previously, the view both ways – from the house and, seen here, from the garden building – was uninspiring, with the eye drawn to the structures at either end rather than the planting.

Now, there’s a single sweep of path making a curve through the planting and terminating at the secluded dining area at the rear of the garden, in the sunniest spot.

“The curving path is the critical part of the whole design – it would have been a disaster to have kept a straight path,” says Bernstein. “Curves are very pleasing on the eye and they also create these different proportions for planting.”

She further softened the effect by swapping the chunky grey slate pathway material for gravel. “It has a lovely soft texture,” she says. “It’s made of fine particles, giving it a more dusty look that’s softer on the eye.”

The couple like strong colours and the inspiration for the planting scheme came from inside the house. “In their kitchen, they have a bright red bench and an aubergine kitchen,” says Bernstein. “Those two colours were the starting point, and they’re fantastic with yellow and mustard.”

The balance of colours is beautifully illustrated in this shot. The purple Aster novae-angliae ‘Violetta’ is backed by yellow achillea, which is in turn backed by the tall red acer. The tree has been there for 25 years, so was one of the plants Bernstein was keen to keep. “It would have been insane to take that out,” she says.

The planting also includes Calamagrostis grass, Cornus (dogwood), and a white climbing rose on the fence, which was also existing.

The small terrace by the house already existed, so that wasn’t changed, but the lush planting now spills onto the paving, creating a lovely and partly hidden spot for a morning coffee.

The soft grass in the foreground is Hakonechloa macra, with Briza media grass behind. The low violet flowers are Geranium phaeum ‘Lily Lovell’. The owners already had a couple of large planters, so Joanne kept one of these and planted it with leafy hostas (just in shot, bottom left).

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There wasn’t the budget to change the fences, but the couple removed the trellises and bought more bamboo roll to fill in the gaps and unify the side boundaries. “It gives a different look to a regular timber fence,” says Bernstein.

She emphasises that there will always be a few plants that don’t thrive and need to be replaced. “No planting plan will give you 100 percent certainty. If a few plants haven’t done well, that’s fine and to be expected,” she says. “It’s not an exact science. Plants are living things with their own idiosyncrasies and every site has its own microclimate.

“A couple of the plants here didn’t thrive and I’ve suggested alternatives,” she says. “We’re replacing the Briza media, because it’s a cool-season grass, so it flourishes early and can end up looking quite tatty in the summer. We’re swapping it for Panicum, which is a warm-season grass that takes longer to get going, but stands all winter looking fabulous.”