MY GARDEN LIFE
Celebrated landscape designer Jinny Blom on helping small plots seem spacious and how sustainability underpins all her magical designs
Designer Jinny Blom on making the most of small plots
Tell us about your route into landscape design.
I trained as a psychologist and psychotherapist, and ran a residential charity for men with significant mental ill health. Gardening has always been my hobby and I used it as a form of rehabilitation for the men, who really enjoyed it. My passion then morphed into a desire to create environments, so I decided to have a go at designing landscapes, which opened up a whole new career.
QDescribe your ethos.
I don’t really have a signature look, more a signature approach. If you look at 20 of my gardens, they are all different, each responding to the environment rather than a design principle. I’ve spent a lifetime looking and learning and those observation skills, coupled with a practical way of thinking, informs the way I create my gardens.
QWhat’s your take on eco-friendly garden design? All my gardens are sustainable. The key is to take time to ensure materials don’t end up in landfill and that the space is built to last. For example, we recently made a garden where the house build had created huge amounts of spill, which we crushed and screened to create paths, drives and an orchard on a hill – none of the waste had to be removed from the site.
QWhat was your vision for your own garden?
I have a tiny, south-facing garden in south London – it’s just 16x6m and has heavy clay soil. I wanted to turn it into an enclave of rooms with my own mini moat, which I created by installing a rectangular pool across the whole width of the plot. The planting next to the house is a fusion of exotics and natives, and beyond the pool, I have two terraces to the east and west sides of a central path.
QWhat design tricks have you used to make it feel bigger? Dividing the space and surrounding the terraces with plants, so you are sitting among them, helps to make the garden feel bigger. I’ve also incorporated a level change beyond the pool and built a false wall and gate towards the back, which gives the illusion the garden goes on further.
QWhich sustainable materials did you use in your garden?
I try to use recycled or local materials, and for my own garden I have a deck made from the timber gabions that formed part of the London Docks before they were demolished. The walls are built with handmade British clay bricks from The Bulmer Brick & Tile Company, which are similar to materials used in this area years ago.
QWhat advice do you have for people redesigning their garden on a budget?
Grow plants from seed or ask friends for cuttings to fill your garden with plants. And if you have established perennials, lift and divide them in spring to make more. Self-seeders are free and the best is the sweetly fragrant evening primrose, Oenothera stricta ‘Sulphurea’, which seeds all over the place and is simply gorgeous.
Which plants are best for a long season of interest? Good doers are dahlias and all forms of verbascum – my favourite is Verbascum creticum – which flowers for months. I also use lots of annuals: cosmos, antirrhinum and tagetes will bloom all summer and into autumn.
QWhich one plant do you always recommend?
Mount Etna broom (Genista aetnensis). This graceful evergreen is as tough as old boots and covered in scented, pea-like flowers in summer.
QWho do you most admire? The late Italian architect, Gae Aulenti, for her simple, stylish work – she designed the Musée d’orsay in Paris. She was hugely influential but few people know about her.
■ Jinny Blom, 020 3950 2899, jinnyblom.com. See more of Jinny’s work in her book The Thoughtful Gardener: An Intelligent Approach to Garden Design (£35, Jacqui Small)
“I HAVE PACKED MY TINY LONDON GARDEN WITH
A FUSION OF PLANTS – FROM EXOTIC TREE FERNS
TO TRADITIONAL TEA ROSES AND IRISES”