Yard of the Week: Plant-Filled, Spirit-Lifting Space for Relaxing
Outdoor rooms and abundant plantings transform an underused London yard into a backyard retreat with year-round interest
This 1960s single-story house in southwest London has big windows with fabulous views of the outdoors. Unfortunately, when these owners moved in, those views were largely of a patchy lawn and overgrown bushes. Landscape designer Lucy Willcox had the vision to transform the yard into a spirit-lifting space for relaxing and entertaining, as well as a beautiful planting display that can be seen and enjoyed from indoors year round.
The position and shape of the house helped with dividing the garden into different areas. On the plan seen here, the bedrooms are at the top, with a new boardwalk (see previous photo) projecting to the right. An indoor eat-in kitchen is at the bottom, with an outdoor table on a patio next to it.
The entrance to the house is to the left of the kitchen, and Willcox created space for a kitchen garden down the side, plus a lush, leafy patch to welcome visitors by the front door.
The entrance to the house is to the left of the kitchen, and Willcox created space for a kitchen garden down the side, plus a lush, leafy patch to welcome visitors by the front door.
While creating a dining area outside the kitchen was a clear-cut choice, it wasn’t immediately clear what to do with the space outside the bedrooms.
“There wasn’t a huge budget, so the most obvious thing to do was a really big planting scheme, because there’s such a big cost difference between putting in hard and soft landscaping,” Willcox says. “But there needed to be some sort of balance in the space and somewhere to catch a bit of sun.”
The boardwalk proved to be a great solution, sitting lightly amid the plantings and creating a spot for loungers.
“There wasn’t a huge budget, so the most obvious thing to do was a really big planting scheme, because there’s such a big cost difference between putting in hard and soft landscaping,” Willcox says. “But there needed to be some sort of balance in the space and somewhere to catch a bit of sun.”
The boardwalk proved to be a great solution, sitting lightly amid the plantings and creating a spot for loungers.
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Before: Looking back toward the house, we can see that the area outside the bedrooms was plain lawn before the redesign.
After: Willcox replanted the area to make it a calming space. The design has a soft, wild feel that creates a sense of seclusion. “This area feels like a really private spot,” she says.
To connect the landscape to the interiors, Willcox chose colors that complemented the bedroom furnishings, picking up the pinks in one room with valerian (Centranthus sp.) and knotweed (Persicaria sp.), and the lime green of the other with spurge (Euphorbia sp.), seen in the next photo. “It’s subtle, but it helps to add to the calm feeling through continuity,” she says. The soft purple spires are hyssops (Agastache sp.).
To connect the landscape to the interiors, Willcox chose colors that complemented the bedroom furnishings, picking up the pinks in one room with valerian (Centranthus sp.) and knotweed (Persicaria sp.), and the lime green of the other with spurge (Euphorbia sp.), seen in the next photo. “It’s subtle, but it helps to add to the calm feeling through continuity,” she says. The soft purple spires are hyssops (Agastache sp.).
In this photo, taken in spring, we can see how the lime green spurge helps to connect the garden to the interior.
Willcox chose wood over stone paving for its softer feel. “This used to be a walled garden for a big house, then the plot was divided into four in the 1960s, so the owners are lucky that on one side they have a beautiful original garden wall,” she says. That wall is seen in the next photo.
“Plus, the house is built of London stock brick,” she says. “So to lay stone would have been too heavy. We wanted something much freer and lighter. The wood has a lovely tonal quality to it. It’s much softer and more grounding, and it suits the garden more.”
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“Plus, the house is built of London stock brick,” she says. “So to lay stone would have been too heavy. We wanted something much freer and lighter. The wood has a lovely tonal quality to it. It’s much softer and more grounding, and it suits the garden more.”
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Before: Willcox thought hard about whether to keep the original weeping cherry seen here. “It’s a really 1960s tree, and it’s kind of in an awkward space, but we wanted to keep it — and actually, it’s come into its own,” she says.
After: Willcox made a feature of the tree by giving the area its own identity. “It needed to feel like a contrast to the wild planting near the bedrooms, so we have shingle [plants] under the tree and hebes around it,” she says. “It’s like mass and void, so there’s a balance between the two spaces, but they still work well together.”
The yard luckily already had a leafy boundary, which Willcox kept. The original wall, seen here on the left, is draped with a vine, the back is lined with conifers, and the fence opposite the brick wall is softened by a mature beech hedge.
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The yard luckily already had a leafy boundary, which Willcox kept. The original wall, seen here on the left, is draped with a vine, the back is lined with conifers, and the fence opposite the brick wall is softened by a mature beech hedge.
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The living room protrudes into the landscape and has large windows on three sides, so it was doubly important that Willcox link the planted areas visually. “Because you can see both aspects, it could have felt like two different spaces, so I’ve linked them with ferns, clipped box [Buxus sp.] and euphorbia,” she says.
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To be able to elegantly link the different areas with their varying light levels, Willcox spent time in the yard before designing it.
“I sat in the garden for a good couple of hours, so I could see where the sun was moving and get a feel for views, which spaces felt nice to look at from the house, which spaces felt nice to sit in, and what might work with an existing tree,” she says. “You need to get used to a space and get a feel for it.”
“I sat in the garden for a good couple of hours, so I could see where the sun was moving and get a feel for views, which spaces felt nice to look at from the house, which spaces felt nice to sit in, and what might work with an existing tree,” she says. “You need to get used to a space and get a feel for it.”
Willcox incorporated succession planting into the design, so the garden would evolve through the seasons and still have interest in the colder months. “There’s clipped box hedging, hebes and euphorbias, which keep some green [in the winter]; grasses that keep their upright form, and lots of plants that retain their seed heads, including sedum,” she says. “Then in spring, you have the bulbs coming through, so there’s a cycle within the planting.”
Luckily, the owners were happy to embrace the idea of seed heads and grasses for winter interest. “Fifteen years ago, people were wanting much more pristine spaces, but now there’s a movement for a wilder feel,” Willcox says. “People have a better understanding of what an outside space can bring, rather than expecting an immaculate garden all the time, which is just unrealistic. They’re happy to embrace the seasons more.”
Luckily, the owners were happy to embrace the idea of seed heads and grasses for winter interest. “Fifteen years ago, people were wanting much more pristine spaces, but now there’s a movement for a wilder feel,” Willcox says. “People have a better understanding of what an outside space can bring, rather than expecting an immaculate garden all the time, which is just unrealistic. They’re happy to embrace the seasons more.”
The restricted number of plant varieties prevents the expanse from looking messy. “I pick seven or so plants and repeat them in blocks of threes, fives and sevens,” Willcox says. “Otherwise it can become overwhelming. The repetition gives a calming sensation.
“There’s also repetition with the contrast in form and texture of the plants,” she continues. In this photo we can see that contrast in how the stonecrop, with a flat head, sits next to the spiky knotweed and billowy grasses. The grasses include New Zealand wind grass (Anemanthele lessoniana, USDA zones 8 to 10; find your zone) and ‘Heavy Metal’ switchgrass (Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’, zones 3 to 9).
“There’s also repetition with the contrast in form and texture of the plants,” she continues. In this photo we can see that contrast in how the stonecrop, with a flat head, sits next to the spiky knotweed and billowy grasses. The grasses include New Zealand wind grass (Anemanthele lessoniana, USDA zones 8 to 10; find your zone) and ‘Heavy Metal’ switchgrass (Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’, zones 3 to 9).
A concrete bench at the back of the yard gets afternoon and evening sun, with the mature willow creating dappled shade.
The pavers were part of an existing patio; Willcox lifted and reused them. “They’re standard concrete slabs from the 1960s,” she says. “They have quite a nice exposed aggregate look, and they fit with the house.”
The pavers were part of an existing patio; Willcox lifted and reused them. “They’re standard concrete slabs from the 1960s,” she says. “They have quite a nice exposed aggregate look, and they fit with the house.”
The wood bench seat coordinates with the decking.
Before: The existing lawn was patchy, and it was further damaged during construction.
After: Now relaid, the lawn neatly connects the relaxing and dining areas. “It’s actually quite a simple layout, but it’s the planting that gives it that wow factor,” Willcox says. “Sometimes it’s easy to overcomplicate things, and actually [it’s best to] keep it fairly simple, then let the plants do the talking.”
The purple flowers seen here are columbine (Aquilegia sp.).
The purple flowers seen here are columbine (Aquilegia sp.).
Before: There were a few existing shrubs, including a large-leaved paperplant (Fatsia japonica, zones 8 to 11) and two apple trees, which Willcox kept and worked into the new design.
After: The area around the dining table is shady, so Willcox went with ferns and grasses to add to the existing greenery. Even though this area has a different feel than the wilder one near the bedrooms, the spaces blend well, because the plantings change gradually from the sunny area to this shady spot.
Before: The entrance to the house is on the opposite side of the house from the yard. The patch to the left of the front door was originally fairly characterless.
After: Willcox divided the strip into two. By the front door, she created a welcoming but very low-maintenance area. A weed barrier sits beneath crushed granite, held neatly in place by a Cor-Ten steel retaining edge. Serviceberry (Amelanchier sp.) shrubs, Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra, zones 4 to 9) and Japanese holly (Ilex crenata, zones 5 to 8) balls bring in soft greenery without needing much attention.
At the back there’s now a kitchen garden, with raised beds and an area for drying laundry.
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Yard at a Glance
Who lives here: An interior designer and a film editor with grown-up children
Location: Southwest London
Size: About 3,060 square feet (284 square meters); 72 by 42½ feet
Designer: Lucy Willcox Garden Design
“There were a couple of things that needed to be considered,” Willcox says. “One was the budget, two were the views out from inside the house, and three was how the garden was going to be used and would be interconnected.”
She tackled the space by designing a series of outdoor rooms, making sure they were visually linked. “Some parts of the [yard] are much sunnier than others, so it was about trying to tie those areas together within the same planting scheme,” she says.
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