SEA OF BEAUTY
A long narrow garden that makes the most of the space
Behind a former fisherman’s cottage in Whitstable in Kent, Harriet Farlam and Ben Chandler have designed a miniature masterpiece. Their outdoor space – just 3.3m wide by 22m long – is a shining example of how to make the most of a small garden. As you step out from their terraced cottage, you’re confronted by a sea of colour and texture, giving the impression of many different areas to explore.
And ‘sea’ is the appropriate word, because the garden was partly inspired by its coastal location. The hard landscaping of wood and crushed shell relates to the beach and its boardwalks, while the floating planting, in lilacs, blues and whites, conjures up waves and spray.
The couple are both garden designers and set up their own business a few years ago, having worked with Chelsea medalwinning designers Arne Maynard (Harriet) and Jo Thompson (Ben). They moved to Whitstable in May 2017, but wisely lived with the garden for a season before taking action. ‘We wanted to see how the light worked,’ says Harriet. ‘And it’s important to have winter interest by the sea, which you tend to think of as a summer place.’
Their priority was to create a garden they could share with family and friends. Immediately outside the house is an east-facing oak deck, ideal for breakfast. Leading down from this is a central boardwalk, sunk below the rest of the garden, ‘to make you aware,’ Harriet explains, ‘that you are on a different stage of the journey’.
At the centre of the garden, up a step and in full sunlight, is the crushed-shell dining terrace, while beyond is the working and cooking area of the garden: the herb beds, the wood-framed greenhouse
and a place for their pizza oven. In the evenings, Harriet and Ben enjoy a gin and tonic by the west-facing greenhouse. Each area is adaptable: on hot summer afternoons, for instance, the dining furniture is sometimes replaced by huge cushions.
SHADE AND PRIVACY
The different levels give a sense of space and help create privacy – key in an overlooked garden. That’s why they decided to position the dining terrace at the centre, out of sight of neighbouring houses. Undulating walls of woven willow disguise standard fence panels on each side of the garden. An attractive backdrop to planting, it’s 2.1m high near the house, dipping to 1.8m at the centre, and then scooping back up to 2.1m by the greenhouse.
Further privacy, as well as dappled shade, is offered by espaliered crab apple trees (Malus ‘Evereste’), pleached in five lines, starting at the top edge of the willow on each side of the dining terrace. The pleaching encourages the eye to look upwards, again making the garden seem larger, an effect that’s helped by keeping the planting simple and minimal at the foot of the trees. Mediterranean plants such as lavender, euphorbia, ballota, crambe, thyme and rosemary are a blurred edge to the gravel.
FOOD FROM THE SEA
Restrained planting around the crushed-shell surface contrasts with the deep, ebullient herbaceous borders. This area and borders are separated by cloud-pruned box hedging, with two fig trees forming an arch above the box when in full leaf.
Natural advantages allow a wide planting range: the garden is sheltered and, at a quarter of a mile from the sea, not subject to salt spray, while the climate is generally mild, with virtually no snow or frost. The soil is heavy clay, allegedly enriched by fish blood, thanks to the cottage once having belonged to fishermen. Planting includes Alchemilla mollis, several different hardy geraniums, including blue ‘Mrs Kendall Clark’ and ‘Cloud Nine’, aquilegia, foxgloves, umbellifers, thalictrum, alliums and poppies.
CONSTANT INSPIRATION
This compact garden is full of clever ideas. Divided from the crushed-shell terrace by another box hedge is a small rectangular bed planted with more Mediterranean coastal plants, similar to but taller than those in the dining area, and including Thalictrum flavum subsp. glaucum and a steel-blue eryngium. These are tucked in front of a line of 1.8m-high chestnut posts in the working area of the garden. Looking like breakwaters, they again reference the nearby coast, but are also functional, drawing attention away from the back gate and the storage area behind the greenhouse.
Although the garden is at its most glorious in high summer, thanks to the contemporary structure, evergreen box hedging and textural contrasts, there’s something to pique the interest throughout the year. Crab apple trees are a particularly valuable small garden tree, because as well as giving height, they’re covered with fragrant blossom in spring and their delicate orange fruits then last right through the winter.
‘Positioning the dining terrace in the centre of the garden and surrounding it with the espaliered trees means we feel nestled and private when we’re eating there,’ says Harriet. ‘And we love the way the planting mimics the natural environment.’
For information on Farlam & Chandler Garden Design visit farlamandchandler.com