28 05/11
08:02

RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London

I have just come back from this years RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London with my head full of inspiration, new ideas, bags full of plant lists and many many pictures on my camera. I will write in more detail about the gardens in the coming posts but first enjoy Studio botaniq’s top 3 gardens:

No 1 Luciano Giubbelei’s garden for Laurent Perrier

This is Luciano’s second Chelsea garden. His first garden in 2009 won Gold and was many people’s favourite garden. This year plants are far more in evidence than in any of Luciano’s previous work. The planting is sublimely understated, using a restricted palate of plants that are repeted throughout. The effect is a flowing tapestry of colours that echo the tints in Rose Champagne and seem as natural as the water that undulates and eddies beside it. The multistem Parrotia are a masterstroke. Very rare ( there are only 11 of these 35 year old trees in the world), their sinuous lines contrast with the rectilinear design of the garden and echo the oriental origins of the building. It’s a very sophisticated and stylish garden and one with a great sense of calm that makes you want to linger long after the crowds have gone.

No 2 Paul Hervey-Brookes for the the National Institute of Blind People

Created for the Royal National Institute for the Blind, the garden is both a celebration of a new children’s home & hospital being built in coventry and an exploration of the sensations of texture.

The garden explores texture both through raw natural hard landscaping materials along with high frequency and contrasting colours in its planting palette.

Overall the garden will be a place to engage with on a deeper level, a space which you will want to reach out to, touch and walk barefoot through.

No 3 A postcard from Wales by Katy Chrome & Maggie Hughes

The garden “recreates the atmosphere of an area of south west Wales close to Welsh-born poet and writer Dylan Thomas’s Laugharne hometown. This garden is set within a much larger garden and evokes a simple place, free from the constraints of busy modern lives, a perfect holiday escape. The dilapidated boathouse resting at the edge of a silted-up river inlet remains untouched. The area around the path has been cared for and planted with soft colours; sprinkles of alliums provide a particular focus. Planting themes run throughout the garden, from the wild and cultivated areas of the design to the adjacent kitchen garden.”

24 05/11
01:22

Work in progress: Shade garden

20 05/11
06:15

A garden restaurant in Kiew

We love the new Garden Restaurant ‘Cad’ in Kiew, designed by 4a Architects. Its stylish and exclusive atmosphere with floating levels, lightweight structures and clear materials invites visitors to relax and delight beneath the canopy of the old trees.

17 05/11
08:30

Constructing Shade

I am just back from Switzerland where I had the honour working together with Tobler Landschaftsarchitekten in the lovely city of Haldenstein, where also Peter Zumthor’s office is located. I brought not only tons of swiss chocolate and Bircher müsli with me but also a very interesting book about constructing shade written by my former professor Dr. Sigfried Gass and other experts like Maja Tobler, owner of Tobler LA and tutor of the HSR Rapperswil and her husband Olivier Zuber who does not only own a huge garden company but also makes delicious pasta…. Right now ‘Schatten Konstruieren’ is only available in German but provides so much information about creating shade with pergolas, canopies, gazebos and tents as well as using the right climbers and trees that I’m quite confident the English version will be issued soon.

08 05/11
12:35

Chelsea Gardens 2011 – a sneak preview

With the opening of Chelsea now only weeks away we can’t wait to catch a glimpse at the first show gardens being build….

Garden designer Luciano Giubbilei uses massive evergreen yew hedges to create instant structure in the Laurent Perrier garden…

while Cleve West achieves a similar effect with deciduous hornbeam hedges