This design was a garden theatre – a design to showcase how sculpture and planting can tell a narrative and promote reflection. In this garden, the different layers represented mankind’s evolving relationship with the environment. At the beginning of the garden, the planting and art were free-form and natural, with grasses and perennials colonising a gravel surface to symbolise the natural landscape. From there, Betula nigra emerged, its peeling branches and flaky bark providing an architectural quality to the design.
As time advances, the sculptures evolved geometrically. Man’s evolution was mirrored in the underplanting, which spanned towards controlled, lush, cultivated specimens including peonies, lupins, geums, hostas and geraniums. The pivotal wormhole view through the garden (a theoretical space-time passage) ended with a sculpture of Aeon. This represented the earth’s nucleus of energy that keeps our planet in a state of equilibrium.