Public Planting is not Boring!

Planting public spaces or at least spaces that are not private gardens can be tricky.  Plants need to be robust, so a lot of the time areas around pathways and car parking spaces end up being planted with shrubs which get cut back each year and morph into a woody single height hedge.  I like to do something a bit more interesting.





We were asked to create a garden for the front of a newly constructed residential building.

The garden had to provide access to the building, but also frame and complement the structure.





So this is what we did.  We created a lush lawn and planted along the pathway with hucheras and miniture hebes.





We created a triangular bed near the entrance composed of jade ferns, bronze phormiums, minature fuchias and china blue agapanthus.  The border is designed to be colourful year round, interesting and low mainteance.   It is soft and pretty and interesting to walk past.





We planted three mult-stem himalayan birches directly into the lawn at one end close to the building.  These beautiful trees won't grow too tall but will contiue to split and fill the space with their beautiful branches and stems.  The small green leaves rustle gently in the summer and the bare branches look stunning in winter.





Along the the covered entrance walkway to the building, we installed a series of columnar chalky finished containers planted with pinus sylvetris.  The columnar shape of the planters compliments and reflects the repetition of the building columns and the dark green pines contrast nicely with the cream stone cladding of the building.





On the other side of the driveway, we planted three-colour phormiums which are visually striking.  These are mixed with large white agapanthus for stunning effect.