The
Crescent in Ripon is a beautiful Crescent in the true, original
use of the word as a driveway to houses. This circular road has
Victorian/Edwardian houses round the outside, with an inner grassed
space with outstanding mature trees in the centre.
Because
of the curved nature of the Crescent, the front gardens are relatively
small, getting narrower from the house to the road. The houses are
rightly listed, so the garden had to be something special.
The designer for the project was John Elm, and in his researches
for the project, he discovered that the house had strong connections
with Lewis Carroll, who was born in Ripon and visited the house
often. He therefore used ‘Alice in Wonderland’ as a theme for his
design, a formal design with box and topiary and bright coloured
planting.
A formal design can be quite difficult in a wedge shaped garden,
but John achieved this with squared shapes of reducing size flowing
down the gentle slope to the road. The path was formed from four
gently sloping panels with a small step between each. The porch
of the house has a Victorian tiled floor, so this was echoed in
the panels. Unfortunately for those building the garden, the size
of the panels was dictated by the size of the garden, while the
size of stone was pre-determined in a quarry in India. So each stone
tile, including the small red stone tiles, had to be specially cut.
Twenty hours later…
The main feature of the garden was three formal beds, with brick
surrounds, flanked by six raised planters. To stay in keeping with
the house we had to source re-claimed bricks of the older, larger
size, and to cap the planters we suggested, and had made at a local
quarry, large stone copings with rounded sides which matched the
window cills of the house.
Despite
the enormous effort which goes into the hard landscaping, it is
the planting which rightly gets the most attention in the final
result. The needs of a television programme are for an instant mature
garden, so all planting, including the box hedge, had to be mature.
We were also able to source and install six excellent topiary specimens
at a price which kept within the budget.
Some
will love, and others will hate the garden – as with every garden.
But we think it does have the Scenic Blue touch – quality of execution,
attention to detail, adherence to budget, and that something extra
– the love of creating beautiful gardens.
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