You can take the gardener out of England...

This is the homepage of a small family garden owned and gardened by an English/Norwegian family.  It belongs to an end-terrace house situated in the suburbs of Bergen, Norway.  This relatively small space (150 square meters) has provided many challenges but from the start, in 2004, there was a clear specification to meet.

Firstly, the garden had to be a space in which children could play and get involved with plants.  Secondly, it had to be a place in which adults could relax and unwind.  Thirdly, it had to be as high maintenance as possible to satisfy and sustain a passion for gardening.  Ultimately, it had to be a quintessentially English garden…in miniature.

This garden's naturally small and enclosed nature mimicked already the style of the early Medieval English garden.  The formal hedging and topiary introduced are very much borrowed from the Tudor and Stuart periods when knot gardens, hedges and formal Italianate and French styles were popular in England.  The front and back lawns, at the heart of the West and East gardens are a tribute to the Victorians and the many wonderful parks and landscaped gardens still found in England today.  Much of the perennial planting is inspired by traditional, informal cottage gardens found across England. 

The brief was complex.  There had to be at least one perfect striped green lawn in the middle.  Not very fashionable perhaps - but a must have.  There had to be formality with topiary, clipped edging and hedging.   The planting by contrast would be soft and romantic.  Cottage plants, perennials and biennials would intermingle with roses and annuals; the type of planting that stimulates all of the senses at once.

So how could all of that be fitted into such a tiny, irregularly shaped, damp and shady plot (pictured above right as it was in 2004)?  Not to mention the problem of finding plants that tolerated the very acid Bergen soil and resisted the appetite of the monstrous Iberian Slugs.  In all honesty it has not been easy.  There were times when giving up and laying a wooden deck over the whole plot seemed like the only sensible option.  However, hard work and careful planning have been rewarded and, as is so often the case, the design process continues today.  A gardener’s work after all, is never done.