There was a time when Stamford Brook in west London was a remote hamlet consisting of a patchwork of market gardens, fields and stretches of heath. But as the centuries marched by and the city grew, the village, just like hundreds of others, gradually turned from farmland to thoroughfare. However, there is one particular garden in this pocket of Hammersmith that harks back to that more bucolic era.
Butter Wakefield's garden is filled with an abundance of geums, foxgloves, nepeta, roses and geraniums; a wildflower meadow sweeps across the centre of the lawn, which is handsomely framed by clipped box pyramids. Disguised behind a trellis is her workstation - apple crates overflow with knapweed, daisies and wild carrot and there are planters of orange, salvia and cow parsley.
It should come as no surprise that Butter is a garden designer. She grew up on a small farm outside Baltimore in Maryland, surrounded by dogs and ponies. "My upbringing is entirely responsible for my job, she says. "My mother and aunt were mad about their gardens and my grandfather was a great plantsman who instilled such magic in his surroundings.
Butter Wakefield is a member of The List by House & Garden, our essential directory of design professionals. See her profile here: https://thelist.houseandgarden.com/profile/butter-wakefield-garden-design
