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Garden name

The Skyshade Garden - Powered by Light

Designer

Marney Hall

Awards

Silver Flora

Video tour of garden

Description of garden

This is an eco-friendly office and garden for a lover of plants and wildlife. The office, made out of sustainable materials and powered by photovoltaic panels on the roof, sits in the corner enjoying the view out into the garden and its variety of habitats.

A stream runs through the garden and is planted with water-loving plants which are also good for insect nectar sources. The movement of the water through the stream also creates sound in the garden to make the space and office feel tranquil and deaden external noise such as roads.

A meadow sits in the centre of the garden with a wildlife border to one side and a woodland to the other. The meadow is planted with extras such as ox-eye daisy, salad burnet, meadow saxifrage, horse-shoe vetch and bird's foot trefoil, while the wildlife border contains plants great for wildlife. The woodland is planted with Swedish Whitebeam, Rowan and Silver Birches and underplanted with shrubs and native forest floor plants.

A herb area is dressed with gravel designed to soak up heat and attract butterflies who prefer to lay eggs on plants in warmer areas so the larvae develop quickly and have better chances at survival. The herbs spill from the garden onto the path waiting to be crushed under foot, filling the air with scent attractive to wildlife and humans alike.

Photo

The Skyshade Garden

Inspiration / influences

Inspired by a rise in the number of people wanting to work from home Marney wanted to make a garden office which would include all the habitats she loved in fact, she said "...in an ideal world this would be my perfect office in the garden."

Wildlife gardens are also increasingly important habitats which we need to value "...it's important that we try our best to help the wildlife in this country which has been hammered so hard over the last 50 years".

List of plants in the garden

Leucanthemum vulgare - Ox-eye daisy

Sanguisorba minor - Salad burnet

Saxifraga granulate - Meadow saxifrage

Hippocrepis comosa - Horseshoe vetch

Lotus corniculatus - Bird's foot trefoil

Sorbus intermedia - Sweedish whitebeam

Betula pendula - Silver birch

Sorbus aucuparia - Rowan

Also

An ecologist and environmental researcher at the start of her career, Marney Hall is a native plant expert. Work on rare species got Marney noticed and she was asked to grow wild flowers for a display at Chelsea in 1989. The planting won a Gold medal and started Marney's foray into the world of show gardening. Her first solo design was at Hampton Court in 1995 and she was awarded a gold medal and the Tudor Rose for Best in Show.

Marney has won 2 RHS Gold Medals, 6 Silver gilt medals, 1 silver medal and 1 bronze for designs at Chelsea and Hampton Court.

Links

List of 2011 show gardens - Chelsea Flower Show

Chelsea Flower Show photographs

TV schedule - Chelsea Flower Show

List of 2011 show gardens - Chelsea Flower Show

Archive: Meet the 2010 garden designers