It's been a busy week this week, the onset of Autumn providing the perfect time to plant up designs completed earlier in the year. This week it was the turn of my E9 Contemporary Courtyard Planting Design which seeks to bring colour, movement and texture to a compact East London courtyard, with primarily dark hard landscaping.
One of the main objectives was to improve the views from the kitchen diner and slightly obscure the view into the garden room. A multi stem Amelanchier achieves this aim with it's semi transparent form and 3 seasons of interest. This is underplanted with cottage garden perennials including Nepeta 'Walkers Low' and Stachys Byzantina, white Achillea and Geum 'Totally Tangerine' with Crocus tommasinianus providing Spring colour. The sketch below illustrates how this bed will look in Summer.
The bold yellow planters from IOTA provide a welcome splash of colour and focal points from the kitchen doors and seating area, with the colour echoed in the Geums, Carex testacea and Lonicera x tellmanniana, trained along the right hand fence.
The bold foliage of a Fatsia Japonica underplanted with Erigeron and Crocus provides a striking view from the kitchen, whilst a Wisteria frutescens 'Amethyst Falls' will be trained above the doors and window to brighten up the extension exterior.
And just a reminder of how it looked before.
I'll be back next Summer to check on the progress of the planting and see the garden in it's full bloom.