Guangzhou Garden: Guangzhou China

PROFILE

Designers Peter Chmiel with Chin-Jung Chen

Chelsea history Debut

Plot MA324

Sponsor The Administration of Forestry and Gardening of Guangzhou Municipality

Contractor The Outdoor Room

Theme How future cities can balance the needs of people and wildlife and be resilient to the effects of climate change

Contact 01225 332664, grantassociates.uk.com

The Chinese city of Guangzhou, with its environmental approach to city planning, is the inspiration for this garden designed by landscape architects Peter Chmiel and Chin-Jung Chen of Grant Associates. Drawing on Guangzhou’s three distinctive landscape zones, the garden layout is an undulating form that starts, at the back, with a rockscape where a green wall and trees, such as Scots pine, river birch and field maple, clean the city air. Water emerges here, and from the latticework boundary fence, to flow across the garden in an organically shaped pool punctuated with grassy islands. The largest of these forms the main social space where a soaring lattice tower, made from laminated bamboo, provides a place for gathering and sitting.

The woodland-edge landscape bordering the wetlands is dominated by two mature dawn redwoods (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) underplanted with ferns, Carex sedges, hostas and the creamy white spires of Actaea racemosa. The changes in the planting palette to make the most of the new September show date have enabled the designers to include a large number of water lilies, which they hope will be in full bloom, including late-flowering Nymphaea ‘Darwin’ and N. ‘Colorado’. Marginals include the exotic-looking Equisetum hyemale, Cyperus involucratus and sparkling Isolepis cernua. Stepping-stone bridges link a number of elegant, geodesic structures ranging from 8.5m to 2.5m high and providing spaces for both people (they include the central tower with seats, a smaller tower fitted with a swing for children, and a bird hide) and wildlife.