Page 196 - home and garden

hose who saw garden designer problem – and that created privacy for that the plants should co-exist without any
James Basson’s gold-medal- each of three properties that they own on species swamping another. More than half
winning ‘Perfumer’s Garden the site: the main house, a cottage above, the mix is made up of evergreens, such as
in Grasse’ at this year’s RHS and a guest house below and to the west. lavender, thyme and santolina, and with
TChelsea Flower Show will James took his cue from the landscape the exception of rosemary, which is clipped
know that what he does so consummately – the limestone cliff behind the house is to about 30cm and creates a graphic line
is create an enhanced version of the natu- covered in Euphorbia dendroides, Quercus through both parts of the lower garden,
ral landscape. The landscape in this case ilex and carob trees – and created, what he there is no dominant species.
was the craggy, aromatic hillsides of describes as, two ‘fudgy areas’ of trees and As the slope is gentler below the guest
the Alpes-Maritimes, close to where shrubs between the main house and the house, the hummocky profile of these
James and his wife Helen had spent a year two other houses. The land drops three tightly planted terraces creates a jewel-
working in a private garden during metres away from the flat terrace and like foreground to the view across to Cap
his Greenwich University garden-design rectangular swimming pool of the main Ferrat from the curved infinity pool.
degree. Having won his first RHS medal house to the mesh boundary of another Guests can wander down gravel paths to
(silver gilt) for a community garden at property belonging to a neighbour. Taking an area of undulating zoysia grass, and
Hampton Court in 2000, he moved to the his inspiration from the traditional stone beyond this to a terrace wrapped in vege-
South of France and set up Scape Design. terraces used by farmers and vineyard tation. There are a further two enclosed
The diversity and tenacity of the wind- owners, James designed three terraces, seating areas at the bottom of the main-
buffeted and sun-baked shrubs became traversed by stone steps, that snake across house garden and here, too, is a developing
his inspiration for creating sustainable the slope and into the garden below the canyon walkway, planted with staggered
gardens, and his introduction to nursery- guest house. Here, the terraces are faced olives on two-metre stems, which will
man Olivier Filippi was, he says, a meeting with chestnut hurdles rather than stone. eventually create a new boundary.
of minds. ‘He was growing the plants that ‘I wanted to keep the sinuous lines of the To soften the expanse of Pierre de
I wanted to grow, and explaining how to grassy landscape that was here before, so Bourgogne flags around the rectangular
grow them in a garden environment.’ the garden didn’t become too rectilinear pool, James wanted a tree with a natural-
In 2010, James was asked to redesign and formal,’ he explains. looking form. In a nursery near Rome, he
an irregularly shaped garden that wraps As an agreed experiment, James decided found a group of abandoned Lagerstroemia
around a property on the hillside above to give his clients an exhilarating matrix indica with exactly the shape he wanted
Villefranche-sur-Mer. It had sparkling of robust and colourful plants, mainly in and peeling stems that drew out the warmth
views across the Mediterranean, steeply shades of pink and white with the occa- in the stone. They stand as permitted
sloping grass that had to be constantly sional splash of yellow, which roll across aliens in a garden that melds gloriously
watered and a handful of out-of-place the terraces in bands of green or silver into the surrounding landscape
Phoenix palms. The owners wanted to foliage. The width of the bands varies,
have a garden that would survive with each one containing species of a similar Scape Design: 00-377-9797 1536;
little or no watering – mosquitoes were a height, ranging from 30cm to a metre, so scapedesign.com

A view of cypresses and palms from the
guest-house garden, with limestone cliffs in the
background. Centranthus ruber ‘Albus’, oleander
and salvia can be seen in the foreground