UK Design

The dry climate and free-draining soil determined the Mediterraneanstyle plants while the gravel mulch and boulders reference the seashore nearby.

CLOSE QUARTERS

Pre-registered members Susan Begg and Nicola Semple of Semple Begg created this oasis of drought-tolerant plants and flowers in a sheltered courtyard on the east coast of Scotland

WORDS: Zia Allaway PHOTOGRAPHS: Andrea Jones

The existing timber deck was recut and relaid as a boardwalk-seating platform around the garden. A small terrace (opposite, top left) made from Yorkshire Witton Fell sandstone is positioned so the owners can make the most of the evening light.

Semple Begg

Pre-registered members Susan Begg (top) and Nicola Semple (above) set up their eponymous landscape and garden design practice in 2014, and now have studios in their respective homelands of Scotland and Switzerland. Their imaginative and soulful gardens are built using plants and materials that are made, quarried or grown sustainably, and the choice is guided by site conditions and the climate. C lose to the windswept coast of the North Sea, about an hour’s drive east of Edinburgh, lies a 17th-century fortified laird’s house and a collection of 19th-century farm buildings. The outbuildings were sensitively restored and converted into four homes 12 years ago and following an approach by the owners of one of these, pre-registered SGD members Nicola Begg and Susan Semple were invited to design a plant-rich garden to complement the house and to enable the wife to fulfill her love of gardening.

Susan explains: ‘Our clients found us online and told us they were drawn to our naturalistic planting style and sustainable approach. The wife has great taste but lacked the confidence to develop the internal courtyard garden in the way that she wanted, so she asked us to come up with a design that would link the interior and exterior spaces. The brief also included a wish for lots of plants that she could tend, a water feature, an east-facing deck that’s perfect for drinking coffee in the mornings and a west-facing terrace so they can sit and make the most of the evening sunshine.’

Points of view

The courtyard, which is enclosed by the walls of the house on three sides, proved to be quite a challenge for the designers. Not only is it small, measuring 12 by 8.5 metres, it had an east-facing raised deck and large, glazed doors set into all three of the surrounding house walls, meaning the garden is highly visible and has several entry points. The only solid wall is on the fourth side of the courtyard, a boundary wall that separates the garden from the one next door.

‘The garden needed to be easily accessible for the husband, who has mobility issues,’ Nicola explains. ‘We also had to consider the planting carefully as while this part of Scotland is very sunny – not what most people associate with this area – it also receives about half of Britain’s average annual rainfall. The greatest challenge, though, was to create a scheme that looks unified, and to fill it with plants appropriate for the very different light levels within the courtyard.’

The solution, they decided, was an informal design in the style of a Mediterranean gravel garden, with irregularly shaped stepping-stones to cross through it. ‘We always try to be sustainable, and the owners were happy for us to keep the east-facing raised deck as a morning terrace and for us to recut and reuse the remaining boards to create a walkway around the other sides of the house.

‘The deck is interrupted in places to allow the planting to go right up to the house, with one of those areas framed by windows that, from inside the house, offer a glimpse into the garden as you walk through the front door,’ Susan explains. ‘The level change and veil of planting enhance the sense of entering a more intimate

‘THE GREATEST CHALLENGE WAS TO FILL THE GARDEN WITH PLANTS APPROPRIATE FOR THE DIFFERENT LIGHT LEVELS IN THE COURTYARD’

The owner’s ferns have been given a shady home in a new, raised bed, with her potted acer and Continus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ nearby.

WHO’S WHO

Design: Semple Begg, semplebegg.com

Contractors:

Kibble Landscaping, kibblelandscaping.com Clay Pavers: CED Stone, cedstone.co.uk

Witton Fell buff sandstone with pink intrusions:

Dunedin Stone, dunedinstone.co.uk Plants: Macplants, macplants.co.uk, and R&B Nursery, rbnursery.co.uk Lighting: Mark Samson, 07535 760836

Sculptural metal poles:

Petalostia by Andrea Geile, andreageile.co.uk GRP Water Bowl: Living Green Design, livingreendesign.com Furniture: Fermob, fermob.com/en space, and the diagonally placed stepping-stones serve to elongate the perspective.’

The stones and a new evening terrace are made from Witton Fell sandstone, while a timber raised bed along the boundary wall ties in with the wood cladding on the house. ‘The building is faced with stone, render and timber, with traditional red clay tiles on the roof,’ says Susan, ‘so the tones in the garden need to be quiet and harmonious to complement these various hard materials, with the plants providing a gentle drift of colour.’

Mediterranean mix

The site also played a strong part in the planting design, as Nicola explains. ‘Rather than bringing in topsoil, we prefer to work with what we have on site and here, the dry climate and free-draining soil determined the Mediterranean-style plants while the client’s favourite colours influenced the palette of soft blues, greens, dark reds and purples. The gravel mulch and boulders are references to the seashore, which is a couple of miles away.’

As Susan points out, planting into gravel means there are no definite border lines, an effect that has helped to soften the courtyard’s hard rectilinear shape. ‘Every part of the garden is on show every day of the year so the plants have to offer an extended flowering period, or, if more ephemeral, take up very little space,’ she adds. The long-flowering plants include Salvia ‘Nachtvlinder’, Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’, Geranium ‘Ann Folkard’, Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Fascination’, and the ground-hugging Cotula hispida, with its yellow pompom flowers over silver foliage. ‘We’ve also used the agaveleaved sea holly, Eryngium agavifolium, for its year-round structure, and grasses such as Sesleria nitida, with its blue-green leaves and white summer flowers, and Stipa gigantea ‘Goldilocks’ to add movement to the scheme – both grasses have evergreen skirts that add interest over winter, too.

‘Shrubs include the dark purple Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’, which mirrors a potted acer that the owner had already bought, and we were also able to put some of her ferns into the raised bed and the cooler, shadier areas, alongside geraniums, Hakonechloa macra and Brunnera.’

‘The season begins with spring bulbs,’ continues Nicola, ‘varieties such as the pretty apricot species tulip, T. linifolia (Batalinii Group) ‘Bright Gem’ and the perennial Pulsatilla vulgaris, followed by alliums, anemones, and Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus, which appear later in the season. We also tucked a small reflective water bowl into the planting, adding a little pond dye to help keep the water clear.’

A bench seat, garden chairs and a small bistro table from Fermob, together with the owners’ original wooden bench seat, add the final touches, while small spotlights pick out key plants after dark.

PLANTING INTO GRAVEL MEANS THERE ARE NO DEFINITE BORDER LINES, WHICH HELPS SOFTEN THE GARDEN’S RECTILINEAR SHAPE.