The Concept A garden office or studio (made from a  converted shipping container – the first to be shown at Chelsea) sat at the heart of the garden.  The basis of the garden design was a ‘storm-water chain’, whereby as much rainwater as possible is captured, stored, cleaned and slowly released, to reduce flooding problems in rainstorms.  The green roof acts like a sponge on top of the building.  Any excess water drains out, down the down pipe and into a pool.  The pool in turn can overflow into a second pool, and in a severe storm this can also then overflow into the garden planting

 

Habitat Walls Permanent structure was given to the garden through a series of ‘urban dry stone walls’ or habitat walls that rose up through the plantings.  These walls were constructed with stacked layers of this stone around a steel framework of uprights.  Rectangular steel inserts contained various found and recycled materials to create invertebrate habitat.  The tops of the walls were planted with alpines and succulents.  The walls were embedded amongst extensive areas of pollinator-supporting plants

 

Planting The garden was planted in three distinct zones: the open sun plantings; wetland plantings, and shade/woodland plantings.  Each of these zones had their own distinct colour themes.