This design was for a couple who had recently sold their holiday home in the south of France, and wanted a A Provençal garden in Cambridgeshire perfect for relaxing that would remind them of the happy years of summers that they spent there.
Inspired by the materials in Provence, we crafted a palette of materials that included tumbled limestone pavers inlaid with bands of smaller cobbles with golden self binding gravel. The garden itself is broken up into areas for entertaining, dining, and quiet contemplation. Our clients have completed extensive renovations on the house through the years, and all of the walls on the south side of the house have extensive glazing that looks out onto the garden, meaning that all of the rooms in the house have great views out into the garden.
Sited just out of the kitchen bifold doors is a paved dining area covered with a contemporary aluminium pergola that beautifully frames a view of the water feature. The water feature itself sits on a gravel circle surrounded by hand-cut tumbled limestone cobbles and planting to provide a soft foil to the contemporary shape of the feature. Dining and entertaining outdoors can be accompanied by the gentle babble of water to give atmosphere.
The planting was designed to thrive in its rural Cambridgeshire setting, but have touches of the Mediterranean using drifts of Agapanthus, Perovskia, Achillea and Stachys running through sculptural Artichoke plants and trained fruit trees to give a nod to a classic Potager. The year we completed the planting this garden received a summer of record high temperatures and record low rainfall, meaning this drought tolerant planting will be more important moving forward.
A feature seating area set away from the house has been flanked by pleached hornbeam trees to provide screening and privacy from the neighbouring houses. The term “pleach” itself comes from the Old French word plechier, meaning ‘to weave,’ indicative of the technique’s essence. Initially pleached trees were used in southern Europe to both grow fruit and to form living fences that were both functional and decorative.
