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The exposed coastline in East Sussex is not the most hospitable of places when the weather flexes its’ muscles for a full scale ‘blow’, but in the languid summer when the crowds descend it can be a maritime idyll. So, when asked to design a garden for a contemporary home on the sea front somewhere to the east of Hastings, the designer in me revelled at the challenge.
Firstly, themes. The idea of a garden to me is based on the premise that it is the seam between the home in which you live & world that exists outside (no fancy ‘garden room’ sound bites here…) & as such should reflect both to sit easily in its’ surroundings. With this house, its’ contemporary architecture, pebble beach with weathered breakwaters, & exposed location all entered the equation. The client’s wish that durability & low maintenance gardening should be combined with a place to enjoy the finer parts of the English weather was then added to the mix. Decks are starting to be talked about in gardening circles as passé, but the truth of it is that where a deck is good design decision then it still works. All those square decks that come in a package & have no relation to the house or the garden cannot become passé quickly enough for me. Here a driftwood motif felt right. The modern deck reflecting the house & the weatherworn timber sitting comfortably alongside the beach front timber. Ironically enough, the method to mimic the effects of wind & rain on wood is by the use of fire… very elemental. Each board on this large deck was hand finished by being charred with a propane torch (like the ones with which you see road menders erasing white lines) & then scrubbed back with a wire brush to expose the grain. After fixing into place on the frame the whole thing was given several coats of clear preservative. Such nice grain on the timber too… not bad for the humble scaffold board. A permanent table was requested by the client, so a tree stump was obtained from Driftwood Sculptures from Bournemouth, & a plank tabletop fixed in place once the stump had been concreted in. Note that the stump was positioned to appear as if the prevailing wind sculpted the growth of an existing tree… just a small touch, but details count. A driftwood fence, sleeper stepping stones & two pieces of natural driftwood set into the garden completed the timber work. You don’t want to overdo these things. The rest of the garden was covered with a porous weed suppressing landscape fabric & covered with beach shingle, bringing the surroundings into the garden. Larger pebbles & glacial rocks were used to increase scale close to the house & deck, differentiating between beach & garden. Plantwise, I consulted the doyen of horticultural literature, Graham Stuart Thomas, for advice through the sections in his books called ‘Clippings from my Notebook’. A cribber’s guide to what will grow where, I took his advice on seaside plants during the design stage. On planting the garden I was more than indebted to Barbara, a close neighbour to this garden who has been fighting the elements for quite a few years with her own patch. As any plant enthusiast knows, someone planting up near your locale is always a golden opportunity to have a look & have a chat. Phrases like ‘You’re brave, planting that’ & ‘I’ve never had any success with that’ made me feel slightly nervous of the outcome, but using the microclimates within the garden (planting within the lee of stones & fences etc) & Barbara’s advice should give the plants a good chance to survive. The winter thrashing from the weather may well reshape the natural form of the plants, but most should survive. Among the plants I used were Sea Hollies (Eryngium), Arundo donax (Spanish reed), Santolina (Cotton Lavender) & grasses (Miscanthus & Molinia). Plants already in the garden & along the coast that were reused included Crambe maritima & Erigeron glaucus ‘Elsted Pink’. Of course, the day after we planted, an unseasonable Force 7 storm & the spring tide scorched everything & sent me home with strained calf muscles from trying to stand up straight against the wind. The plants (&my legs) are recovering well now. If you are planting next to the coast then remember if you are importing plants from away from the coast then, especially in winter, acclimatising them in a sheltered spot before planting out is advisable. All in all this was a wonderfully satisfying project, & if, like the clients, I had made a permanent home by the sea, then I could thing of nowhere in Britain I’d prefer than this house with this garden. Many thanks with this project to: MKAD Architects – Tel 01233 612876 Natural Driftwood Sculptures – Tel: 01202 578274 |
