Jo Thompson

“As a brief, I was given the words: inspirational, feminine, innovative, romantic, sophisticated and elegant. My reaction was that I wanted to create a garden for a 21st-century woman with a sculptural pavilion as the centrepiece. I was inspired by two completely different pieces: a basketware Wedgwood porcelain that had an ethereal shape but was also quite strong; and Barbara Hepworth’s Winged Figure outside the John Lewis store in London’s Oxford Street, which has a solid frame but looks and feels light.

“Our pavilion is as much a sculptural piece as it is a practical structure. The coated steel ‘strings’ make a series of curved shapes as you look at them from different directions. It’s nearly 4m high and 8m at its longest, but because it’s not solid it is less imposing, less masculine.

“I’m using Yorkstone boulders, rocks and paving in an organic way, to balance the man-made structure. In places we’re linking the paving to the sculpture by inserting molten metal into the seams and cracks in the stone. This is a detail you could have in a real garden.

“I wanted a weeping shape for the main trees and have chosen Salix exigua as it’s elegant without being too ornamental or forced. The colour palette of yellow, blue, purple, rust and peach is new for me, and draws on Josiah Wedgwood’s colour trials. The nurserywoman Marina Christopher has introduced me to some lovely plants I’ve not used before, including Trachymene coerulea (blue lace flower) and Eremurus ‘Romance’.”