Daylesford Organic

Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice

Designer: del Buono Gazerwitz
Contractor: Brambles Garden Landscapes

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Summer Solstice is an organic agrarian garden, linking a green wheat field flanked by native trees and wetland ditching to a sheltered potager for the new century. Kitchen garden becomes ‘garden kitchen’ with an architectural green-roofed building where what is grown is prepared for dining outside.

The planting is native and naturalised, and seasonal for the solstice. The garden is intended to demonstrate that the demands of organic practice, conservation, sustainability and self-sufficiency can be strengths, not limitation, in contemporary design.

Native trees flank and shelter a portion of green wheat, bordered by ditching for drainage and wetland flora, and native hedging for wildlife. This leads over a traditionally laid hedge into a kitchen garden, sheltered by stone walls and incorporating an outdoor fireplace.

The focal point, a state of the art green building, looks down the garden, with planted green roof, solar panels, reclaimed timber and Cotswold stone. At its sides, flowerbeds for flowers and soft fruits, offer clocks of colour, giving sightlines indoors and out and shielding the utilities of eco-friendly living – compost, wormery and water storage.

View the BBC's video coverage of the garden