In this once-overlooked suburban plot, designer Colm Joseph has created a modern gravel garden that offers a relaxing green retreat
IN BRIEF
What Small suburban garden.
Where Suffolk.
Size 15m x 11m.
Soil Free-draining, lime-rich loam.
Climate Temperate.
Hardiness zone USDA 8.
Small gardens are all too often defined by their boundaries, but, by paying attention to this garden’s perimeters and carefully shaping the space within, garden designer Colm Joseph has brought the focus into the heart of this garden. Here a restrained yet naturalistic planting scheme has created a relaxed and harmonious place to spend time in. The owners of this garden, in the suburbs of historic market town Bury St Edmunds, are keen gardeners, but were saddled with too many challenges to tackle a redesign themselves, dating back to when the house was built in the 1990s. “There were overpowering shrubs and uninspiring panel fencing that failed to screen the garden, and a lack of inviting destinations within,” recalls Colm. On the verge of retirement, the owners asked for a garden where they could spend a lot more time relaxing: “They wanted it to be a truly immersive retreat.”
The principal challenge faced by Colm was the fact that this garden was overlooked by neighbouring properties on all sides – hardly conducive to relaxation. In order to deliver a garden with a truly immersive feel, Colm had to rethink its boundaries. “Unless there’s a characterful old wall or the budget to build something beautiful, I like to green up the perimeters, to soften them and give them a much more natural feel. Using the same boundary treatment throughout also creates a sense of coherence, which is so important in a small garden and means that your eye settles within the space and isn’t drawn to the fence.”
In what might seem like a counter-intuitive move in a small garden, Colm has invested valuable space in creating a double boundary using two forms of Carpinus betulus, firstly as an outer hedge that screens the existing fences, then, within that, as a line of pleached trees.
“This provides privacy screening to a good height. It takes up a little more room, but it’s worth it because together the boundaries bring a greater sense of layered depth and make the garden feel less finite.”
The house opens on to the garden via two sets of French doors and the owners asked for two seating areas, to serve as lounging and dining spaces. But rather than place these adjacent to the house, Colm has sited them in the middle of the garden. “In a smaller plot, I avoid leaving a central void. Instead I like to bring mass into the garden to shape the space, which, again, actually makes the garden feel bigger.” That sense of mass is achieved with a third variation on Colm’s Carpinus betulus theme, this time in a multi-stemmed form, as well as with mounds of dwarf pine (Pinus mugo ‘Mops’ and Pinus mugo ‘Gnom’) that repeat around the garden, adding year-round structure and texture to the groundcover planting. Colm likes to anchor his gardens in the wider landscape, so for this design, he drew on the genius loci of the Suffolk countryside – a tapestry of arable fields and hedgerows, studded with pockets of woodland that frequently combine deciduous trees with pines.
“For me it’s an important design principle for gardens to resonate with their wider setting.” For the hard landscaping, Colm has chosen a light grey limestone, which he says is a nod to the chalk geology of parts of East Anglia. Just as with the Carpinus betulus, Colm has used the stone in contrasting formats: a naturalistic gravel and outsized slabs of sawn-finish paving, bringing simplicity and modernity to the design.
The paving is used to define the two seating areas. “Again it feels counter-intuitive, but using oversized pavers actually increases the sense of space,” says Colm. To continue this garden’s restrained aesthetic, Colm opted for a pared-back planting palette.
“To create a restful space, I wanted the garden to feature layers of green, confining the wider colour palette to drifts of purple, pink and white, with some yellow hues,” he says. A relaxed feel is further cultivated by contrasting the clipped formality of the boundary with a looser, more naturalistic approach to the ground over planting, “from the pines, down to the thyme that creeps across the gravel and softens the edges of the large paving slabs”. For Colm, the perennials bring a subtle dynamism to the garden. “It’s so important to tie the garden to the seasons, with plants such as gauras, salvias and sesleria bringing a sense of flux throughout the year in what might otherwise be quite a static composition.”
This garden is a deft balancing act, between classic and modern, formal and informal, the manicured and the naturalistic. Now screened and private, the owners have little more to do than sit back and enjoy the new-found sense of harmony.
USEFUL INFORMATION
Find out more about Colm’s work at colmjoseph.co.uk
TREES IN A SMALL GARDEN
Trees have a crucial role to play in the creation of a successful small garden. They add height and mass, helping to shape the space and define areas within the garden. Trees also provide a connection with nature and seasonality – something that is important in all gardens but even more so in urban or suburban spaces. Colm likes to connect his gardens to the wider landscape and often opts for species that grow naturally in the surrounding area. Among his favourite trees for a smaller garden are Malus (the crab apples), Cornus mas, Amelanchier x lamarckii, and multi-stemmed Crataegus. “I often use deciduous trees with spring blossom and good autumn colour, as they sync the garden, and the people using it, to the changing seasons, and are great for wildlife.”
To create calm and cohesion in this garden, Colm used another versatile species of native tree with strong seasonal interest, Carpinus betulus, creatively deployed in multiple forms to improve privacy and blur the boundaries of the garden, first as a hedge and, further in, as a row of pleached trees. There are also multi-stemmed feature trees that have a sculptural quality.
The form of tree chosen for a small garden is also important. The multistemmed specimens used here are “umbrella-pruned”, with a raised canopy and clear stems, to preserve the views through the stems and across the garden. “There’s no foliage low down so they don’t feel too heavy, but you can still appreciate the mass of the canopy above head height, which is useful for creating dappled shade over the seating areas.”
8 key plants
1 Alchemilla mollis
Scallop-edged foliage contributes to the layers of green in this garden, while the yellow-green flowers add a subtle lift to the planting. 60cm x 75cm. AGM*. RHS H7, USDA 3a-8b† .
2 Thymus serpyllum ‘Pink Chintz’
This evergreen groundcover adds drifts of pink in early summer and softens the lines of the limestone paving. The flowers are edible, and pretty in salads and drinks. 10cm x 50cm. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 5a-8b.
3 Selinum wallichianum
The fine, frond-like foliage and white umbels bring variation in texture and form, while the claret-tinted stems echo the colours at play in this garden. 1.2m x 90cm. AGM. RHS H6.
4 Oenothera lindheimeri ‘Whirling Butterflies’
A short-lived perennial worth including for the long flowering season of hazy spires of pink-white flowers. 75cm x 50cm. RHS H4, USDA 5a-9b.
5 Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’
A compact, bee-friendly plant that thrives in a sunny gravel garden. Drifts of purple racemes provide a contrasting form within the planting scheme here. 50cm x 30cm. AGM. RHS H7, USDA 4a-8b.
6 Pinus mugo ‘Mops’
Provides evergreen structure within the naturalistic planting. 4m x 8m. AGM. RHS H7, USDA 2a-7b.
7 Sesleria autumnalis
Semi-evergreen grass with long-lasting, silver-white panicles and beautiful autumn colour. 50cm x 50cm. AGM. RHS H7, USDA 5a-8b.
8 Euphorbia myrsinites
A low-lying plant with glaucous leaves and acid-yellow flowers in spring and early summer. 15cm x 30cm. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 5a-9b.
*Holds an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society. †Hardiness ratings given where available.