You may feel, when visiting this summer’s garden shows or watching them on
television, that you could never have something so lovely of your own. This
needn’t be the case, though: the designers of these heart-stopping gardens
are for hire. If you can afford their services, you can end up with
something as gorgeously conceived and executed as a gold-medal winner.
So, who are the country’s top designers, and what can you expect when you
commission a garden from them? Not all of them are on the show circuit, and
they come from markedly different backgrounds - in sculpture, academia,
architecture, industrial design and psychotherapy, for example. Their
working styles vary, too: some, such as Tom StuartSmith and Christopher
Bradley-Hole, run large practices that create complex landscaping projects
as well as gardens. Others, such as George Carter, prefer to work alone.
What all the designers have in common - apart from not coming cheap - is
proven design skills. (Many of them are trained landscape architects.) They
also have the highest standards when it comes to sourcing plants,
hard-landscaping materials, sculpture, furniture, craftsmen, specialist
suppliers and the all-important contractors who build the gardens.
TOM STUART-SMITH
Stuart-Smith, 48, has seven Chelsea gold medals under his belt (he won best in
show for the third time this year), and his planting schemes have been
described as “breathtaking” and “masterly”. When he uses an unusual plant
(cloud-pruned hornbeams this year) or combines certain colours (rusts and
oranges in 2006) in his Chelsea designs, everyone copies him.
He has perfected the art of using few materials and combining them with
multilayered planting. His preferred commissions are new gardens in the
country, in what he calls “established landscapes”. A walk round Broughton
Grange, in Oxfordshire (which hosts the National Gardens Scheme garden party
on Friday), where he tackled a vast sloping walled garden by dividing it
into three stunning terraces, will reveal why this designer is at the top of
the tree. Clients: StuartSmith’s historic work includes a new park for Paul
Getty Jr in Oxfordshire, the recasting of the borders at Trentham, in
Staffordshire, and the entrance garden to Windsor Castle. New gardens
include the approach to the new glasshouse at RHS Wisley.
Costs: Prices on application. 020 7253 2100, www.tomstuartsmith.co.uk
Broughton Grange is
opening on 4 July from 4pm to 8pm to host The National Garden Scheme’s
annual garden party. This is the first where guests will have a chance to
meet the Chelsea best-in-show winner, Tom Stuart-Smith, who designed
Broughton’s walled garden, as well as gardeners and friends from across the
country. Also meet head gardener Andrew Woodhall, who will talk about the
construction of the walled garden and future plans at Broughton Grange. The
party costs £10 for members and £15 for non-members.
ANDY STURGEON
In his first Chelsea garden, in 2001, Sturgeon, 42, showed how rusted-steel
walls and containers sporting just one big spiky plant could be cool, and he
won a gold this year for his partly sunken garden with a Mary Quant-inspired
sculptural wall. He often chooses trees, shrubs and plants with big leaves.
The effect is contemporary, but not outlandish.
He knows how to handle spaces for families, as well as sophisticated rooftops,
and can provide the full sustainable package, from low-carbon lighting to
grey-water recycling. Clients: Sturgeon recently designed wavy Cor-Ten steel
planters and a sedum roof for Robin Cousins’s seaside garden, and produced a
more traditional design – but using his trademark bold planting – for the
British ambassador’s residence in Paris. He’s based in Brighton, but will
design gardens anywhere in Britain and has been popping up in far-flung
spots such as Bahrain, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Costs: Sturgeon takes on projects with a minimum construction value of £40,000
(excluding fees). 01273 553336, www.andysturgeon.com
JINNY BLOM
With her background in psychotherapy, you’d expect calm, soothing gardens from
Blom, 47, and that’s what you get - in spades. She was chosen by Prince
Charles to design his award-winning Healing Garden at Chelsea in 2002. In
terms of style, she takes her cue from the setting and the owners, but her
preferred planting palette is naturalistic. She can also do wooden decking,
metal ramps and antipodean spikes. Clients: Her client list includes
bohemian types, bankers, titled gentry and several career women. Most of her
designs are for private gardens, but she also likes to do charity projects,
such as the garden at the Sir Michael Sobell House Hospice in Oxford. Blom
prefers to work in Britain, but will travel to Europe.
Costs: From £7,000 to £10,000 for a concept, depending on size. Thereafter, a
time charge applies. 020 7253 2100, www.jinnyblom.com
CHRISTOPHER BRADLEY-HOLE
It all sounds a bit austerely cerebral: the golden section, mathematically
harmonious proportions and rectangles within rectangles. But the modernist
principles adhered to by Bradley-Hole, 54, combined with his love of
herbaceous plants and grasses, make for highly individual gardens that ooze
style and elegance. It was at Chelsea that Sheik Zayed, the late ruler of
Abu Dhabi, spotted his talents. He commissioned Bradley-Hole to make a
series of gardens that have been among the most innovative in the event’s
history - and have earned their creator five gold medals and two best in
shows. Clients: Understandably, customers have an interest in contemporary
design and want something that’s personal to them. You can see
Bradley-Hole’s grid design of geometric raised beds in rusted steel, planted
with grasses and perennials, at Bury Court, near Farnham in Surrey (open by
appointment). His public designs include the former Arsenal stadium and BBC
White City, in west London.
Costs: From £1,500 for an initial consultation, depending on size and
location. 020 7357 7666, www.christopherbradley-hole.co.uk
ARABELLA LENNOXBOYD
LennoxBoyd has been practising for nearly 40 years, and is 70 this year, but
is still going strong. She defines her style as combining “formality with
voluptuous planting”, and has had the 25-acre estate at Gresgarth Hall, in
Lancashire, to practise on since she left Italy, her home country. She has
perfected the polished country-house garden - sunken terraces, ha-has, earth
mounds, massed cherry trees, canals, and big, gorgeously flowery beds - but
her gold-medal return this year to Chelsea, after an eight-year absence, was
with a restrained, Japanese-inspired look, involving water, stones, bamboos
and large-leaved plants. Clearly not one to be typecast. Clients: Royalty
(the king and queen of Belgium), aristocracy (the Duke and Duchess of
Westminster) and rock stars (Sting, David Gilmour), as well as plenty of
grand country-house owners in Britain and abroad.
Costs: From about £7,000 for a sketch masterplan for a small London garden.
Once a project is agreed, fees can be as a percentage of the costs or a
fixed fee, depending on the client’s wishes. 020 7931 9995, www.arabellalennoxboyd.com
DAN PEARSON
If you have a garden with a “borrowed landscape” and you love plants, then
Pearson, 44, could be the designer for you. He admits he can work only with
a client who shares a vision – and most projects are big schemes that take
up to 18 months of planning before the first digger arrives on site – but
Pearson’s training as a hands-on gardener means he has one of the finest
eyes for plant harmony. His special interest is naturalistic planting. Clients:
Pearson is the designer of choice for many artists and designers in other
fields. The publisher Carlo Caracciolo gave him free rein with his medieval
walled garden in southern Italy, and he has just completed a series of green
spaces for the Maggie’s Centre, in Hammersmith, west London.
Costs:From £10,000 for a concept plan. 020 7924 2518, www.danpearsonstudio.com
GEORGE CARTER
Expect formal drama, even in a small city plot, as Carter, 59, uses topiary,
fountains, changes in levels, mirrors, trompe l’oeil and oversized urns to
create verdant stage sets. In a large country garden, his designs may
involve pavilions, grottoes, cascades, arches and obelisks. To see just how
theatrical a one-acre site can be, visit the new Garden of Surprises at
Burghley House, in Lincolnshire, where he employs hydraulics to make water
leap, spurt and drip in wonderful ways, and where giant obelisks are
wreathed in fiery smoke. Clients: Carter has made a garden for the
Heseltines, a roof garden in Rome for Forte Hotels and lots of structures -
steps, gates, seats, pavilions - for country-house owners.
Costs: An initial half-day consultation starts at £450, plus Vat and expenses,
depending on location. 01362 668130, grcarter@easynet.co.uk
LUCIANO GIUBBILEI
This 36-year-old Italian doesn’t do billowy or, heaven forbid, colourful
borders. His signature green “rooms” involve an elegant layering of clipped
trees, hedges, manicured lawns, tall urns, stone or decking terraces and
flights of steps. They will probably also be dramatically lit, have chic
contemporary furniture and a serious piece of sculpture, and work as calm,
uncluttered extensions of the interior. Clients: Giubbilei is the soul of
discretion, but word is that he has designed for a famous footballer and
various society figures. Recent projects have taken him to America, France
and Spain, but most of his gardens are in and around London.
Costs: He mainly project-manages, with gardens starting at £100,000 (including
construction and planting). Drawings start at £6,500. 020 7622 2616, www.lucianogiubbilei.com
TODD LONGSTAFFE-GOWAN
Big spaces, preferably those in need of a complete rethink, are what
Longstaffe-Gowan, 47, revels in. His academic bent - he has a PhD in
historical geography and writes books and lectures on gardening - means he’s
comfortable with landscapes attached to historic piles, but he can also turn
his hand to rooftop spaces (Charles Saatchi’s, for example), and his own
garden in east London is a jungle of leaves. Longstaffe-Gowan’s practice is
small - he has just one assistant - which means you’ll get his full
attention. Clients: He has worked for the Rausings for many years, and for
Lord Rothschild at Waddesdon Manor, in Buckinghamshire. He is also garden
adviser for Hampton Court and Kensington Palace, and will zip round the
world for the right kind of project - he has made gardens in the West Indies
as well as Europe.
Costs: From £6,000 to £8,000 for a concept proposal, depending on size, then
12%-14% of the costs. 020 7253 2100, www.tlg-landscape.co.uk
CHRISTOPHER MASSON
Possibly because he’s so modest, this gently spoken New Zealand designer, 62,
who learnt the craft alongside the great Lanning Roper, is not as well known
as he should be. Yet those who’ve had their garden designed by him (or
redesigned: Masson is particularly good at transforming plots that have gone
to seed) talk about how inspirational his designs are, and how skilled he is
at looking positively at what is already there, then making the most of it.
Clients: Bernard Taylor, former head of Glaxo, along with various titled
folk and media people. He has created several gardens in Spain and North
America, as well as in Britain.
Costs: £120 per hour for an initial consultation. Thereafter, the fee depends
on the nature of the project. info@christophermasson.com
