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Gardening

Iris Jardine talks to Carolyn Parker, interior designer, and her associate Cindy Ritson, landscape gardener, on gardens becoming more integral with the house.

Blending house and garden

Blending home and garden is important

For the house, Carolyn feels that this trend is largely due to the influence of the many interior design and gardening shows currently on television. Where a house has a terrace or a courtyard, it is comparatively easy to carry this through with garden furniture and sculptures.
    Flooring is also one of the areas which can be carried through from the inside to the outside. Where curtains are involved, she sometimes lines them using a fabric that she then also uses outside.
    She cites her own home as an example of this trend. A brick barn, which has a very traditional structure, has been given a contemporary feel inside, with lots of suede and leather, chrome and glass. This is reflected outside with chrome water features, glass fittings and contemporary garden furniture.
    The main living area and the terraces are all of the same lime stone flooring, with glazed windows so that when you look through, you see the same flooring. The gardens, with uniformed and structured planting in the foreground, have a less formal look further back with a woodland setting.
    In the garden, Cindy feels that when considering designing your garden you should also look at the architecture of the house. For example, an old Victorian house needs to have its imposing features carried through to the garden with a formal structure.
    This means plenty of greenery and evergreen with appropriate statutes or a fountain to accompany it. Sometimes there are restrictions on what you can do.
    In Carolyn’s case, although the garden is in the country, there is a wall which can not be removed, so the design has to blend it in. The exterior of the house has a terrace with a formal area complete with pond and topiary. With an acre to play with, Cindy has broken the garden into rooms with box hedging. That is, enclosed areas linked with pathways, where you go through a gate into another area. Although not finally completed, it is envisaged that one area will be a pottager; a formal vegetable garden, with a herb bed in its centre.
    Other parts of the garden are likely to be more child friendly, with a lawn area for children to play in. At the rear, she has created a more natural area to blend in the back of the garden with the woodland, which is on the other side of the wall.
    She has achieved this by planting tree shrubs with various natural plantings of bulbs underneath the trees, and has included an arbour to provide a seating area. The wall is to be covered with ivy and climbing plants.
    Lighting is also an important element to consider, so that your garden can also be used and admired in the evenings. If you are starting from scratch, it is worth asking a lighting expert for their input at the initial stages.
    However, before you consider asking someone to come in, it is important to plan exactly what you would like to do. Even if it is just a statue that needs to be lit, you must decide where you are going to position it.
    Putting a summer house in the garden, with fabrics co-ordinating with the house and your terrace/patio is another consideration. Lighting it properly will also entice you into going out there even if the weather is uninviting.

Carolyn works all over the country and
can be contacted on: T. 01937584601
Cindy Ritson: T. 07774474801
www.carolynparker.com