Garden designer Laura Heybrook's Oxford garden is brimful of colour and life
Tucked behind a Victorian house in bustling central Oxford is a garden that defies convention. Clipped topiary and a giant echium in the tiny outdoor space in front of the house are the first hints that a plant lover lives here, but nothing quite prepares you for what lies beyond the wooden side gate. ‘I had the idea to create something different from anything I had ever made before,’ says its owner, the garden designer Laura Heybrook. ‘It needed to make the heart sing every moment of the year. I wanted to it be romantic and otherworldly – a Botticellian sanctuary of flowers and insects.’
The house, built in 1880, had once been a bakery, a legacy still celebrated by traces of a 1902 advertisement on the side wall. ‘When we bought it, the back garden was covered in rubble from the old bakery buildings,’ says Laura. ‘An awful lot of concrete came out – it looked just like a bombsite,’ she recalls. The space was cleared, tonnes of topsoil were brought in by tractor and a new green oak fence was installed. From then on, Laura’s plans could start to take shape.
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The first design that she tried had a neat a circle of lawn surrounded by borders. ‘I have three energetic children, and it soon became apparent that the lawn was far too small for ball games – it quickly turned into what looked more like a ploughed field,’ explains Laura. She decided that nearby Port Meadow – open common beside the Thames – was going to act as the new grassy area for the children and did a complete U-turn on the design. Plants, not lawn, would fill the space. ‘I wanted the children to be able to learn about plants, to go bug or frog watching, to be able to find their own secret corners in their own wonderland.’
Only two years have passed since the lawn was taken up, but the new garden looks as though it has always been here. It is really one large border dissected by narrow gravel paths to draw you into the richness and variety of the plants with all their different flowers and scents. A framework of geometrical box topiary brings an immediate sense of theatre and fantasy. ‘I envisaged a backdrop of evergreens and topiary that would feel cheerful, even on the darkest winter days,’ says Laura. The paths lead to the end of the garden, where the most charming lean-to greenhouse has been built by a local carpenter to a traditional design with irregularly sized panes of glass.
‘The more densely I plant, the bigger the garden seems,’ says Laura. ‘At times, there’s a feeling you could almost get lost in it, there is such a lot going on. Every week it looks different, with so much happening and so many flowers to pick for the house, which is a joy.’ By late summer, most of the plants have grown upwards to envelop the topiary, and the garden is full of luxuriant growth and a mass of colour. Laura has used a mix of grasses, perennials and annuals that are all insect-friendly.
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Experimentation has been the key and she watches to see which plants thrive and which self seed, and takes out anything that upsets the balance, managing the garden with a light touch. Pastel hues seemed lost in the dense planting, so she added bursts of stronger, luminous colours, using plants like the deep crimson rose ‘Darcey Bussell’, Achillea filipendulina ‘Gold Plate’ and Aster x frikartii ‘Mönch’, woven in with clumps of tactile grasses and umbellifers.
Large French windows bought from a reclamation yard (and originally from a Parisian café) lead out from the open-plan kitchen and, when these are thrown open in summer, the lure of the garden is magnetic – inviting you on an immersive sensory journey. ‘I wanted it always to have poise and not to be chaotic,’ Laura explains. ‘So there are surges and waves of growth throughout the year, with different volumes and colours playing out month after month during the seasons. It is all an experiment and, to create it, I had to set my mind completely free’.
Dale & Heybrook Garden Designers: daleandheybrook.com
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Eva Nemeth1/7Salvaged from a Parisian café, a pair of large double doors leads out from the kitchen, with planting coming right up to the back of the house.
Eva Nemeth2/7Laura grows tomatoes and tender plants in the greenhouse.
Eva Nemeth3/7Laura has made the most of every inch of space. On the left of the driveway, she has trained pear trees of different varieties, with the rambler Rosa moschata and wisteria growing up the wall of the house. Self seeding plants, such as Nigella damascena and Erigeron karvinskianus, soften the edges, with box topiary in the corner and irises in the foregound. ‘Greenery and plants are so good for your spirit,’ she says. ‘We are in the middle of Oxford and this garden takes you somewhere else’
Eva Nemeth4/7The space at the side of the house is put to good use, with pleached hornbeams, topiary and Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ in a terracotta pot.
Eva Nemeth5/7Gravel paths wind through the planting, withAchillea filipendulina ‘Gold Plate’ providing bright colour
Eva Nemeth6/7A tangle of plants, includingVerbena bonariensis, Stachys byzantina, Stipa tenuissima and Kniphofia ‘Green Jade’, crowds the path that leads to the bespoke greenhouse, made by a local joiner
Eva Nemeth7/7Two years ago, this 18 x 9 metre back garden was filled with builders’ rubble. Now, it overflows with plants and insects and is a magical combination of scent and colour. A small, informal terrace was created with reclaimed stable stones from a nearby reclamation yard.
