Andre Schott has transformed his standard Milton Keynes plot into a WILD WETLAND
BEFORE
Having grown up in Holland surrounded by lush wetlands, it was no surprise Andre Schott’s plans for his new garden were far from the ordinary. Faced with a sizeable but standard plot surrounded by houses, conifer hedges and complete with hard paving, huge garage and part divided with a trellis fence, many homeowners would have been tempted to work with the existing framework. But Andre had bigger plans.
“I’ve kept planted aquariums for most of my life, fascinated by the miniature life and plants within,” he explains. “Inspired by Dutch water gardener Ada Hofman, I’d long dreamt of creating a naturalistic water garden where you can walk through drifts of wetland plants, moving from one pond to the next, ideally without knowing exactly where the water ends and the land begins – where the flowerbeds, reed beds and ponds all merge together into one.”
It was a wonderful vision, but a far cry from the humdrum Milton Keynes plot he’d inherited when he’d bought his home in 2017. But sketching out a series of ponds down the length of garden, woven together with a meandering path and wooden walkway, Andre’s dream began to take shape.
CRYSTAL CLEAR VISION
By 2019, Andre had firmed up his plans and started clearing the site. “I took down the garage and built a shed next to the house to still have storage space,” he shares. “That spring, all the concrete from the drive was removed, along with all the brickwork and remaining pathway. By mid-June, the garden was clear and ready for work to start.”
Having done tons of reading up over the years, plus more than his fair share of daydreaming, Andre decided to call in garden designer Hayley Hughes of Plantology (plantology.co.uk) to help work up a masterplan. “Hayley sounded as passionate as I was,” recalls Andre, “and was especially interested in working with me on the ecological aspect of things, putting together planting communities to represent the wetland theme.”
The devised plan consisted of five individual ponds separated by a snaking wooden walkway, the multitude of smaller ponds offering far more space for marginal planting at the water’s edge than one or two larger pools would. The goal was to cover the garden with an endless sea of perennials and grasses, and it was crucial that these either originate from wetlands or look as though they do, and would support a host of bird and insect life. A jetty over the water at the far end of the garden would provide an immersive seating zone, next to the existing collection of fruit trees to be saved as an orchard area.
Andre’s love of plants was key to the success of his radical design
