Designer Kristina Clode has transformed her clients’ previously dull garden by revamping a series of borders with towering perennials, hazy grasses, structural shrubs and the occasional small tree
WORDS STEPHANIE DONALDSON PHOTOGRAPHS ABIGAIL REX
A traditional mixed border in its prime is a glorious sight, but the key phrase is ‘in its prime’. As time passes, shrubs become overmature, roses can lose their vigour, perennials need dividing and even the finest border can begin to look tired, possibly old-fashioned and in need of a major overhaul. Sometimes it never worked in the first place.
This was the problem that faced garden designer Kristina Clode when clients requested her help. The couple knew that the existing layout and planting wasn’t working, but didn’t know how to improve it. They wanted more colour and year-round interest, but also wanted to keep plenty of sunlight in the garden, so there were to be no tall trees. More unusually, all the existing plants were to be incorporated into the new planting – although they could be moved to different positions. For plant lover Kristina, having more than 600 square metres of borders to fill was a dream job. “The planting was very shrub dominated and congested,” she says, “with too many red, silver and variegated-leaved shrubs, and there was little in the way of flowers, or varied texture and movement. The challenge was to incorporate multiples of shrubs I wouldn’t normally include in my planting designs, such as various red berberis, Teucrium fruticans, Nandina domestica ‘Fire Power’ and Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Tom Thumb’, and disperse them through new borders in a way that did not dominate the planting.”
The original borders were only 1m deep, so Kristina reshaped and extended them to create much deeper areas, with diverse planting that included changes in height, texture and colour. “Mixed borders offer the best year-round interest and are a great habitat for wildlife, with trees and evergreen and deciduous shrubs providing a woody framework that shelters birds.”
Height is an essential element in a big space like this. “Perennials, self-seeding annuals and biennials of varying heights and flowering times, and ornamental grasses give a range of textures, colours and dynamic changes in height through the seasons,” says Kristina. She also planted bulbs in drifts around the perennials to extend the seasons providing early spring colour right through to midsummer with alliums, gladioli and eremurus. “Many of these plants have fantastic seedheads after flowering, which are visually pleasing and offer food
