Afternoon Tea in the Garden

'Do come and have afternoon tea in the garden.'

How very British!

Given our occupation it is a not uncommon invitation.

Because we are often invited back,

To look at our garden designs.

But the invitation was none the less gratefully received.

Especially since afternoon tea also included a drop of the fizzy pink stuff.

Name us a garden designer who does not like pink champagne!

And also one who does not relish the chance to gloat at their own handiwork!

'The borders were to die for, darling'!

 

It was not always thus........

for we found ourselves back at a project which had begun rather inauspiciously on a foggy winter's day.

Our mission had been to completely redesign the garden, the proviso being that the drive needed to stay in the same place.

We had also had to take account of there being only this one space to satisfy both entrance and recreational functions since unusually for the Uk there was not a back garden.

And so our design sought to create usable areas around a drive which would feel slightly separate and enclosed while none the less retaining cross views which enhanced the spaciousness of the property.

One of the main features of the new garden design is a generous terrace

(our clients are great entertainers and gracious hosts).

This terrace would be completely surrounded by arcs of billowing borders.

 

And yet link with the garden beyond using focal points.

Our clients love focal points and so arches frame the exits from this terrace

ocused

which are themselves focused on a pretty arts and crafts style summerhouse

and on various urns

and views.

Our garden design made rather more of the drive itself as an attractive feature.

It is lined on both sides with clipped Portuguese Laurels and interspersed lengths of box hedging and Nepeta.

So it is more an avenue than a drive and almost a garden in itself.

And on the opposite side of the drive from the terrace low hedges, again of boxwood, divide the garden into picnic lawns

which will shortly focused on another focal point. Yes there is always the future in gardens!
And what of our afternoon tea in the garden?

Well, while you can see from the pics that it was not continuously wall to wall sunshine, neither was it cold and wet.  There was therefore no requirement for the kind of stiff upper lip, for which we Brits are justly famous, which requires us to freeze our butts off in driving rain while simultaneously assuring our hosts that all is well.

The lemon drizzle cake was exceptional and the conversation delightful!

And as we talked insect life conducted its own conversation. The bees reminding us as they buzzed in the flowers we had chosen that providing food for pollinators was an important part of our original brief. And of course where there are bees there will be honey.

Someone in heaven tell Rupert Brooke, who famously asked 'Is there honey still for tea?', that even post Brexit some old English values are alive and well!!

R