Jonathan Garratt designs garden for Craft Study Centre at Farnham
20 Nov 2007
Director of the Crafts Study Centre in Farnham, Surrey, Professor Simon Olding
asked me to design and build a new garden. The structure itself is a rather
beautifully arranged space dedicated to the display and preservation of makers'
work from the 20th century and for the showing of new contemporary pieces
from modern craftworkers. The brief in essence was to encourage greater numbers
of visitors, flatter the building and provide an interest through the year.
Since I take a very great interest in garden design these days I leapt at
the chance to articulate what knowledge I have on that score and set about
designing for two experiences of the space: one from the front as a visitor
entering and the other from the side, looking down the space through all the
planting onto the park beyond and over the roof of the (very nice) new
supermarket/clocktower down into the town beyond. Flow, in other words.
I made a small seating area cocooned but free of planting and a circular pad
from engineering bricks for a piece of my sculpture in wood. The black graphic
delivery (shadows) is derived from the perception of the front wall of the
building working like a cinema screen (it's off-white). So Calamagrostis Karl
Foerster sway in a long row along the back of the garden interspersed with
Crocosmia Lucifer, with a frothy sea of Bituminaria Bituminosa, Gaura Lindheimeri
and Imperial Gem Lavender in front as the main body. To the right of the main
entrance I have put French echium and Leonitis Leonorus with Sternbergia Lutea
and more Calamagrostis. The evergreen interest is supplied by two different palms -
Trachycarpus - myrtle, Euphorbia Mellifera and small grasses by the pavement,
Carex Testacea , married with a row of Convolvulus Cneorum.
A Cercidiphyllum shades the bench for hot summer elevenses.
Daffodils in spring.
