Combat Stress Therapeutic Garden for Hampton Court

2010-06-30T01:27:00.000-07:00

The date for the build at Hampton Court has finally arrived and this week we have started the 'setting out' of the garden. This is the culmination of many months of planning and work, and although it is exhausting work and means staying up in London away from the family, it is also exhilarating.

The project was born a year ago last July when I was asked to look at the Combat Stress's residential site in Leatherhead. A large extension was being built and this had created a courtyard area that was in serious need of redesign and landscaping. The aim was to create a therapeutic garden for those undergoing treatment at the centre. It needed to be suitable for veterans undergoing occupational therapy and also a safe and comfortable environment to be enjoyed whilst on their own, with their families or with other veterans.

Once plans were drawn up, Combat Stress expressed their wish to share its unique qualities with a larger public, and so the journey to a Show Garden at Hampton Court began. We modified the design a little and submitted plans to the RHS for approval. When approval came through the real work began: to raise sponsorship to pay for it. I have been humbled and gladdened by the many efforts by companies and individuals to support this wonderful project – without them, the garden could not have come to fruition.

Unusually our garden started from a real garden with a real purpose, and that's where it will go once the Show is over. Not one plant will be lost or thrown away, but all will be carefully re-sited at the Combat Stress centre in Leatherhead to bring peace and inspiration to veterans affected by traumatic brain injury and other conditions. The Show presents Combat Stress and all the team working with us to bring the very special elements of a therapeutic garden to a broad public.

If you haven't booked your tickets yet for Hampton Court, I urge you to come along and see our garden and the many other Show gardens just emerging from the turf as I write this.

Welcome to my blog

2010-01-27T09:15:00.000-08:00

I am new to this so I hope you will be patient while I get into my digital stride. I am a garden designer based in Wiltshire on the Somerset and Dorset borders, and I work from a little garrett in the estate office of the glorious Palladian house and gardens of Stourhead. So when designer's block strikes, a stroll around the lake never fails to inspire me.

Just as the days lengthen and perhaps especially this year after all the snow and ice, you get that longing for Spring. From my tiny window in the eaves I can glimpse the tops of some beech trees and Rhododendrons whcih are budding with the promise of things to come. I'm not alone, either, because just this week I have had three calls from new potential clients, each keen to rethink and revitalise their gardens. The initial meetings are always so important: not just for the site visit and soil test, but for the opportunity to really understand what someone wants from their garden and how these wishes can be married to the landscape and its relation to the house. My journey to garden design came from graphic design so I have a particularly visual approach to the job. I've been working this week with the team putting together my new website and it's meant collecting and editing my vast collection of photographs and designs. The exercise has really brought home to me how much I value texture in the overall planting and landscaping decisions of my schemes. Varying and marrying textures so enriches the overall effect and can be as evocative as colour in determining the mood of a garden.

Small clumps of snowdrops are to be seen bravely nodding among the wintry grass.

Fi Boyle

Combat Stress Therapeutic Garden for Hampton Court

Welcome to my blog