Ground force

In west London, designers Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg have created a textural space in a palette of greens

A green city garden that partly sits on top of a basement extension

Agood sweep with a brush works wonders for a small garden, but neatness alone will not make it interesting, which is especially apparent when everything can be seen at a glance. Gardens come alive with leaf textures, tree shapes, considered materials and beautifully made structures; the kind of elements you would expect to see in a show garden. This is easier said than done, unless you were to hire the young design duo Harris Bugg Studio, whose individual RHS Chelsea Flower Show gardens have shown a solid understanding of medal-winning design.

Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg announced their partnership at Chelsea in 2017, just before Charlotte won a gold medal for her first outing at the show – Hugo had won gold two years earlier. Now, their team of seven is split between London and Exeter. Over the past three years, the pair have amassed a fearless array of projects from roof terraces and country estates, to vast undertakings such as the National Trust’s Clumber Park in Nottinghamshire and the walled garden at the new RHS Garden Bridgewater, near Manchester.

The garden that wraps around this Victorian villa in west London was completed two years ago, after large-scale building and engineering works on the property. A basement extends under the lawn, while an underground connecting duct leads to a mews at the back. These factors naturally presented some challenges to Charlotte and Hugo, who were tasked with making a year-round garden with plenty of

Multi-stemmed Carpinus betulus, underplanted with Epimedium x versicolor ‘ Sulphureum’, fill raised beds of patinated bronze, with cascades of Hakonechloa macra further down. The fountain (made by Bamber Wallis), is surrounded by droplet-like flowers of Melica altissima ‘ Alba’.

This is a garden full of vitality and vertical structure, aided by a series of raised planters in patinated bronze

structure and greenery, that would suit the elegance of the house while also accommodating goal posts for two boys.

The latter part was probably the easiest, since pittosporums in huge pots don’t mind being hit by balls, and a flat-lawn football pitch will sit happily over a basement extension. Depth restrictions posed more of a problem for trees and shrubs. Added to this, planting under one of the boundary walls was prohibited because it was underpinned during restoration, and similarly, there was to be no planting against the house. Nevertheless, this is a garden full of vitality and vertical structure, aided by a series of raised planters in patinated bronze.

Twelve new trees, their root balls specially restricted for life in a tight space, were deposited by crane into the back garden. Three Magnolia x loebneri ‘Merrill’ and numerous Carpinus betulus occupy the raised beds and are also planted in the ground where restrictions allow. The mainly green plant palette is foliage heavy, with reds coming from stems and leaves, and pink and white supplied by weeks of pale Tiarella ‘Spring Symphony’, pink flower spires of Rodgersia pinnata ‘Chocolate Wing’ and frothy Gillenia trifoliata.

Walkways are yew-lined, placed at varying distances from the brick wall to create a rhythm, that is syncopated. A series of yew cubes are broken by a flop of grasses under a magnolia. Narrow yew hedges make room for a resolutely spare, modern pergola, free of planting but finished with subtle ironwork, which is carried into the details of bespoke door latches, the firepit and a gently burbling fountain, all designed by Harris Bugg

Studio. Hard materials are as important, and interesting, as trees and leaves. “They are all connected and form the bones of the garden,” says Charlotte. “It’s got to look as beautiful in January as it does in summer.”

Clockwise from top left The garden uses a largely green and white planting palette that encompasses a variety of textures and leaf shapes, including (1) Hosta ‘Devon Green’ combined with the delicate, white grain-like flowers of Melica altissima ‘Alba’; (2) the umbellifer Cenolophium denudatum; (3) the soft pink and white flowers of Tiarella ‘Spring Symphony’ with the hart’s tongue fern Asplenium scolopendrium; (4) multi-stemmed Magnolia x loebneri ‘Merrill’; and (5) Rodgersia pinnata offering a contrast of foliage with the fern Dryopteris affinis ‘Cristata’. Right below A pale-grey terrace creates a cool counterpoint to the green planting. Charlotte and Hugo often use Yorkstone in town gardens but here chose a textured limestone with fossils in its surface that connects to the greying iroko hardwood chairs.

At the front of the house, a narrow, shaded passage is lined with mounds of clipped Pittosporum tobira ‘Nanum’ interspersed with loosely rounded mounds of Hakonechloa macra, growing beneath a pair of Prunus ‘Accolade’.