The landscape designer on a childhood spent running wild in Exbury Gardens, a serendipitous choice of post-university study and a deep-seated love of drainage. Portrait by Philip Hartley
For landscape designer Marie-Louise Agius, last year’s period of drought left her feeling scared. “Everything was curling in on itself, leaves were shedding and gardens were looking miserable.” This summer’s plentiful rainfall, however, has made her much happier as managing water is absolutely central to all her design schemes. “I always joke that my epitaph will say that I tried to be a landscape designer and all I ever did was talk about drainage. But if you manage the water, you can manage the land. It’s absolutely fundamental.”
Marie-Louise – whose great-grandfather was Lionel de Rothschild, creator of the 200-acre Exbury Gardens in Hampshire – has been immersed in managing landscapes for more than 20 years, since she joined landscape architect Michael Balston’s studio in Wiltshire. The practice has a range of projects but, she explains, large country estates and landscapes are their bread and butter. “I love large landscapes. With Exbury as an example of what can be done, they don’t scare me.”
Horticulture runs through her veins on both sides of her family. She grew up spending weekends and holidays at Exbury, which became a giant playground. “My happy place was outside, and with my younger sister and an older cousin I’d have adventures in the woods, make camps, tramp round the gardens.” She also loved art, and was an art scholar at school, but didn’t have the courage to study fine art at university and chose sociology instead.
With no idea what she wanted to do as a career, she signed up for a one-year garden design course at KLC School of Design in London, as a way of postponing the decision. But from the first day she discovered she loved every single part of the course. “When I look at it retrospectively, it seems obvious that this was my destiny, even though I didn’t know it at the time.” Three years in the landscape department of Clifton Nurseries co-ordinating and overseeing the implementation of projects gave her the groundwork for her future career as a designer. “Probably five per cent of what we do as designers is creative; the other 95 per cent is delivering it.”
If you can manage the water, you can manage the land
At Michael Balston’s practice she found her design wings. “Michael trained as an architect, and as a design mentor he is second to none,” explains Marie-Louise. She recalls that when she first looked at his portfolio, what struck her was that every project was different; there was no set style. Each job was designed uniquely for that particular client and that particular site.
The importance of site analysis and of working in harmony with the landscape continues to be a mainstay of the practice, which is now run by Marie-Louise with Michael as a consultant.
An example of their inspired collaborative response to a challenging site is the landscape they designed for the cancer charity Maggie’s, at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds. The site for the building, which was to be designed by Thomas Heatherwick, was a small patch of green that had become a wind tunnel between the high-rise oncology department and the car park. Marie-Louise and Michael visited in winter.
Five per cent of what we do as designers is creative; the other 95 per cent is delivering it
“It had a few plants dotted around, trying to brace themselves against the wind, but there was one plant, Viburnum opulus, that was heavy with berries and full of bounce. Here was the clue to reading that landscape: a native shrub that was happy as a pig in muck in such inhospitable conditions. That’s why we went down the route of a native woodland scheme for both the ground landscaping and the rooftop garden.”
The native woodland concept also works on other levels. It’s an evolving landscape that offers seasonal moments (bluebells in spring, leaf colour in autumn) for the cancer patients who make repeat visits to the hospital, and it’s also what Marie-Louise describes as a “forgiving” landscape, which tolerates the odd weed appearing as long as it’s not pernicious.
As with all of Balston Agius’s projects, collaboration with the architects and all the other specialists involved was key to its success, and Marie-Louise loves this part of the job. She is clearly open to ideas and suggestions from clients, from nurserymen, from landscapers.
Every single time I go into the gardens I notice something I’ve never seen before
When she was designing the Centenary Garden for Exbury, of which she is now a director, she was looking for an alternative to yew topiary or hornbeam columns to provide vertical elements in the middle of the four borders. Robin Wallis of Hortus Loci suggested fastigiate dwarf ginkgos, which Marie-Louise linked with a wave of Miscanthus sinensis ‘Graziella’. A perfect solution, she says, as the grasses and ginkgos turn wonderful shades of buttery yellow and oat in autumn.
Marie-Louise shares a passion for propagating with her father – they both stuff their pockets with seeds when they are walking through the garden. She loves the camaraderie between owners of other private gardens and collections, as they swap seedlings of rare and unusual plants. “People have such depths of knowledge,” she says. “I am continually humbled.”
But her most impressive classroom is Exbury itself. “Every single time I go into the gardens I notice something I’ve never seen before. It’s bonkers. You’d have thought by now I’d know these gardens inside out, but they are so vast and extensive; every day is a school day.”
Find out more about Marie-Louise’s work at balstonagius.co.uk