INSPIRED BY ART
Stylist & book author SELINA LAKE shares her on-trend styling ideas & glorious garden buys
Art and gardens have long been entwined. Artists are inspired by beautiful gardens, and gardeners take inspiration from artwork for their planting palettes. A fabulous example was designer Sarah Price’s The Nurture Landscapes Garden at last year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Sarah took her inspiration from artist and iris breeder Sir Cedric Morris, her design influenced by his paintings of irises and his bohemian garden at Benton End, Suffolk. She used a palette of earthy pinks, golden sand and mauve, and varieties of bearded iris. My fave was iris ‘Benton Olive’, and my husband Dave and I ordered a few for a sunny spot in our garden.
Cedric’s garden is currently being restored by the Garden Museum. If you’ve never been, this London museum is a wonderful place to visit. I went a few years ago to see a floral exhibition; it was a great day out and I came away inspired to get out my watercolour paint set from my art college days. While my work isn’t a match for established artists, painting is such a relaxing way to creatively capture moments in my garden, in a medium completely different to photography, which is what I usually use.
Do you have a favourite artist? Or painting? Or perhaps a fabric or wallpaper design? Take a good look at the colours, the design theme and the mood and consider if you could incorporate some of the aesthetics into your next garden project. I absolutely love the work of William Morris and I’m often thinking of ways to incorporate ideas from his designs into my garden. I’m off to see Red House, once his iconic Arts and Crafts home, this summer, and who knows what loveliness that’ll lead to in our garden!
Go visit!
London’s Garden Museum (gardenmuseum.org.uk) is a great place to see garden art and is a fun day out. The Jean-Marie Toulgouat: Gardening Giverny exhibition is running March 13-April 24, and make sure you leave time to wander around the fab courtyard garden, designed by Dan Pearson as an Eden of rare plants. If you can’t get there in person, there are lots of events you can join online.
