TUFNELL PARK

Crittall-style, bifold doors, family garden, plank paving, Hydrangea 'Little Lime', Anemone x Hybrida 'Honorine Jobert', Yew ball, taxus baccata, garden view Tufnell Park family garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

bi-fold doors, inside outside, Prunus x yedoensis cherry tree, Anenome x Hybrida 'Honorine Jobert', Taxus baccata, Luzula nivea, Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost', shady garden border, Tufnell Park Garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Garden patio, Prunus x yedoensis multistem tree, Taxus baccata, Anemone x hybrida 'Honorine Jobert', Luzula nivea, Brunnera 'Jack Frost', Shady garden planting, Tufnell Park family garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Anemone x hybrida 'Honorine Jobert', white flowers, Tufnell Park family garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Plant textures, Soleirolia soleriolii, Carex 'Ice Dance', Hellborus niger, Alchemilla mollis, Hydrangea 'Little Lime', plank paving, planting detail, Tufnell Park family garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Prunus x yedoensis multistem cherry tree Tufnell Park family garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Anemanthele lessoniania grass, Erigeron karvinskianus, Viola riviniana, Taxus baccata, plank paving, ground cover planting, Tufnell Park family garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Crittall-Style, bi-fold Doors, garden view, family living, Tufnell Park family garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Acanthus mollis flower, Anemanthele lessoniana grass detail, Tufnell Park family garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Oenothera lindheimeri flowers, white flowers, summer flowers, Tufnell Park family garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Secret door, secret garden, timber fence, Anemanthele lessoniania grass, Taxus baccata - Tuffnell Park Family Garden, Taryn Ferris Gardens

Project Brief:

Create a contrasting naturalistic garden to counter the polished concrete of a recent ground floor refurb. Softness and nature to envelope the view. A family garden with a 'secret' doorway, lawn to play, and lots of soft fruits.

Diminutive in size, this garden needed to deliver big for a family with young kids. Inclusion of lawn was important for play, however this needed to be balanced with a patio area to dine and enough planting to create a feeling of adventure. The intriguing icing on the cake was a creaky old a half-size garden door in the rear corner of the garden. The fences needed replacing, but it was important that the new design reintegrated this feature back in to the fence.

A garden of two halves was created, with bands of planting across the space to take advantage of the full length views from the bi-fold floor to ceiling windows. A foraging garden was created within the rear half of the garden - complete with strawberries, climbing wineberries, a wonky little plum tree, and a thornless blackberry bush in a feature terracotta urn.

The front half of the garden received little direct sun and was planted with shade tolerant shrubs, grasses, and herbaceous plants that would flower throughout the seasons.

The crowning glory was a new spring-flowering multi-stem Yoshino cherry tree - bang in the middle. A tree in the in the middle of a small garden is seldom seen - but it gives the garden such presence and seasonal focus.

Photographs by Anna Omiotek-Tott and Taryn Ferris