The 2-Tone Garden

I was invited to design a garden with Marshall Landscapes for the Royal Show, 2007

Using dark slate and white rendered walls, with a stunning mirrored water feature, the garden was named the 2-Tone garden in fond memory of the Coventry music scene of the late 1970's. Planting white foxgloves, Roses and Agapanthus and using dark Heuchera licorice as a mulch kept the planting in a cottage style but with a very limited palette of colours.

Two rows of Italian Cypress trees created a vista which was enhanced with the use of mirrors and laying the slate lengthways to give a feeling of greater length. The garden is very simple yet very usable showing that it is possible to create a beautiful garden in the smallest of spaces.

Building the garden had some difficulties to overcome not least because it was built on tarmac, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise when it barely stopped raining for the whole of June & July.

The garden won three awards including the large gold medal for best in show, the Hazlerrig cup and the stewards award of merit. The judges felt that the garden had reached 'exceptional standards in both concept and the creative use of planting'.