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Small gardens
Philippa Pearson in association with Sadolin Woodcare
The Sadolin Garden of Regeneration
Designer: Philippa Pearson
Contractor: Mark Aitkins Landscape Services
Sponsor: Sadolin Woodcare
Click on the image to view a hi-res version
This garden is designed to show how easy it is to create a garden in a small space that has fruit, vegetables, herbs and contrasting ornamental plants, while at the same time uses organic growing principles, environmentally friendly maintenance and is ecologically sound. The design is inspired by historic potagers in gardens in England and France where productive and ornamental aspects blend perfectly. Keen cooks would enjoy the garden for its edible plants, ornamental planting and the small area for cut flowers.
A raised wooden seating platform has planting areas for perennial plants, standard shrubs and roses. Behind this, a simple but distinct wooden wall forms the backdrop of the garden. On the platform is a handmade oak bench, made in Cornwall from a fallen tree planted in Napoleon times on Bodmin Moor. On a bench is hand-carved lettering, a line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Kubla Kahn: And there were gardens bright.
The productive area of the garden is in a series of raised wooden beds. The four main vegetable beds surround a central diamond-shaped bed and the design reflects the formal beds used in historic potagers. Each vegetable bed covers four separate plant families for crop rotation: legumes, onions, brassicas and roots. A central wigwam with different climbing vegetables is in the centre of each bed. The diamond bed has a standard white redcurrant, underplanted with strawberries.
On either side of the side boundaries is a beehive shaped compost bin. The boundary of wooden posts and iron rails also act as a support for the various trained fruit trees which are underplanted with herbs. The path in this area is made from recycled bricks. Two step-over apples are used on the front boundary to the garden: these are often used as boundary edging in potager beds. In each corner at the front is a cutting flower patch to provide cut blooms for the house. Sponsor, Sadolin Woodcare’s products are all carbon neutral and all the wood used in the garden is recycled and treated with Sadolin.
Philippa Pearson first started working in horticulture in 1998, after a career in advertising and marketing which led to specialising in horticultural PR. At the same time, she began working her way through the RHS horticulture qualifications. Her great love is for plants and after time she “fell into” garden design. Philippa’s own garden in rural Cambridgeshire has a large vegetable plot, fruit area, mature tress and is currently undergoing its own transformation.