On a blank canvas of a garden in Surrey, designer Arit Anderson has imposed a bold 3D grid to link indoors with outdoors and create separate leisure zones, and then painted the space with 6,500 of the owners’ beloved tulips
WORDS JODIE JONES PHOTOGRAPHS SARAH CUTTLE
In the spring of 2019, the garden surrounding Jane and Paul Turner’s newly built Surrey house could be described only as a blank canvas. The entire site was laid to grass, and although Jane was a keen gardener, the lack of any existing features made it hard for her to know where to make a start.
Having recently redecorated her house, Jane had forged a good relationship with the staff at her favourite Designers Guild shop where, as luck would have it, garden designer and television presenter Arit Anderson also liked to pop in for inspiration from time to time. Sensing that the two women shared a similar aesthetic, the staff brokered an introduction and began a process that has resulted in a beautifully designed garden full of glorious colour.
“Because she had been decorating, Jane had a series of interior mood boards that helped me understand what colours and patterns she liked,” says Arit. “She also really loved her plants and wanted a garden that had true horticultural impact.”
On her first visit, Arit found the house dominant for lack of a garden setting, but it was clear that the site had plenty of potential and Jane had already planted a yew hedge around the boundary. “There was beautiful mature woodland beyond the boundaries, and a smart new swimming pool and pool house nearing completion, so my challenge was to draw all these different elements together,” Arit recalls.
Arit based her design on a geometric grid that she used to visually link the main house to the pool house, and from there she extended the plan to create separate zones for sunbathing and outdoor dining. “From the front door your eye is drawn straight through the house and out into the back garden, so I designed an oak pergola to frame that view and help anchor the space, then I softened it with trachelospermum and roses, which blend it into the overall scene.”
To introduce additional interesting changes of level to this generally flat site, Arit also planted a pleached hornbeam stilt hedge (one of Jane’s favourites) and created a floating platform for sun loungers by the pool, with a subtle shadow lin
