Estate Living Magazine Alfresco Living - Issue 36 December 2018 | Page 55

Sissinghurst’s ten rooms (White Garden, Rose Garden, Cottage TAKE THE INSIDE OUTSIDE
Garden, Orchard, Nuttery, etc.) caused something of a sensation Dividing your garden into rooms (or even just into different use
when the gardens were opened to the public in 1938 – and they’ve areas) helps break down the barriers between the interior and
remained a major influence on horticultural thought and practice exterior areas of the home – especially when you equate the two: in
ever since. the same way that we have dining rooms or lounges inside, we have
patios and private retreats outside.
It’s instructive to see the gardens as Harold did. They were
successful, he wrote, because their rooms provided a ‘succession Despite the fact that you probably don’t own a castle – so you’re
of privacies: the forecourt, the first arch, the main court, the tower unlikely to have space for a nuttery or an orchard – and given that
arch, the lawn, the orchard. All a series of escapes from the world, you might have to repurpose some of your garden rooms as your
giving the impression of cumulative escape.’ family grows, you can still let your imagination run wild.
GETTING REAL What can you do to rig up an outside shower for your garden
Of course, not many of us can make (or even afford) gardens like bathroom? A rustic ceramic hand basin, perhaps, a decadent hot
Vita Sackville-West’s or Roberto Burle Marx’s, but the lessons that tub (if you’ve got the water for it in your area), or maybe even a loo
great gardeners like them teach us shouldn’t be lost when planning with a view? As long as it’s a one-way view, of course.
our almost certainly smaller outdoor spaces.
How can you create a garden playroom for young children – jungle
If you can create some kind of progression through the garden – gym, slide, huge sandpit – that could become their own nursery
a series of openings, a path through an archway, round a bamboo (plant nursery or veggie garden) as they grow older? Will you be
or timber screen, or through trimmed shrubbery – you’ll raise able to then convert this ‘room’ into the private space they’ll want
the curiosity of anyone who enters it or moves through it. A well- when they mature into their teens? And – probably most difficult of
designed garden arouses a sense of wonder – an intense desire to all – what would teenagers want in a private retreat in your garden?
find out what’s around the next corner. (Don’t answer that.)
Two things if your garden’s really small, though. First, the theory of A braai area is an outside kitchen, and a well-designed back yard is
garden rooms doesn’t preclude the ideas and philosophy behind an outdoor utility room where chores become a pleasure.
Zen gardens – arranged well, the different elements of a Zen
garden will lead your mind down pathways of its own (see Estate The point is, of course, that anything you can do in the house, you
Living, October 2018). And second, please remember that creating can do in the garden (well, almost anything) – and that’s the genius
a room isn’t the same as decorating one. Rooms are about spaces of the idea of dividing your garden into rooms.
– decorating comes afterwards.
That, and the curiosity they evoke.
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