A windy garden in the Purbeck Hills has a stunning, changing design.

Helen Elks-Smith designed this beautiful garden in the Purbeck Hills on the South Coast of England. It’s part of a farmhouse, which the owner had decorated beautifully, but it needed a garden.

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No house is complete until the garden is at least underway (no garden is ever complete). Elks-Smith had to develop two gardens which had previously served separate buildings within the farm.

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They needed to work as one garden, and also ‘act as a buffer between the inside of the house and the ancient landscape in which it sits’ explains Elks-Smith.

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The garden is also very vulnerable, with strong coastal winds tearing through the garden. To shelter the plants and the people enjoying them, the designer created drystone wall windbreaks and shelter belts of trees.

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Grasses in the planting scheme pick up the pattern of the wind through the front garden: ‘it is lovely to see the wind and not just feel its blast of air,’ says Elks-Smith.

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Layers of planting in the front garden mean that anyone looking up from the steps see a mix of colour and texture that change through the season.

Have a look at Elks-Smith Garden Design for more information.

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2 Responses

  1. hMh

    can u plse. tell me the name of purple plant on wiry stems on the right side of the picture? I’ve only ever seen them in pink and red and have been looking for this color everywhere ! Would u know the proper name/genus/species? (opposite the verbena, little grape size heads) Many thanks! I am in zone 4a are they perennial ?

    Reply
    • Helena

      They’re a type of allium, if those are the ones you mean. Like oval shaped more compact chive flowers? They’re grown from bulbs and are perennial. Never seen them in blue or red before though.

      Reply

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