Contemporary Country Garden and Koi Pond in Harpole, Northamptonshire

From Building Site to Show Garden in Six Months

Most people spend years nurturing a garden before they dream of opening it to the public. Our Harpole clients gave us six months – though we didn’t know that at the start.

A house extension had knocked about their garden. The original 1970s cottage had gained sleek modern interiors and floor-to-ceiling glass doors that demanded a view worth looking at. What they had was builders’ rubble, a tired garden with crazy paving gone wild and an old pond in the wrong place (see below).

The brief was refreshingly clear: to create a contemporary country garden with a large natural koi pond at its heart – and keep it manageable. Then, in the spring, just before planting, they casually mentioned that they’d signed up for the Yellow Book Open Gardens scheme in June. No pressure then.

A Japanese-Inspired Heart

The koi pond became the garden’s centrepiece – a substantial naturalistic pool you can walk right around, edged with a mix of porcelain paving and local stone salvaged from the original garden. With the pond as the focal point, we created clean pathways that let you experience the water from every angle.

The existing lovely old stone walls stayed and became features rather than boundaries. In a garden facing north-east with patchy sun, we had to be clever about sitting spaces – one is tucked into the morning sun, and another catches evening light near the windows where it’s sheltered from the wind.

Planting for Impact – Fast

Planting in April for a June opening meant choosing tough, fast-establishing plants that would look generous rather than gappy. We went heavy on the pollinator-friendly blues, purples and yellows our clients love – salvias, nepetas, verbascums and a few yellow roses.

A weeping pear stayed, some favourite acers were relocated, and everything else was chosen for year-round interest without year-round fussing. This needed to be a garden that could survive a fortnight’s holiday without descending into chaos.

The Payoff

Two months after planting, strangers were walking through saying “wow”. Our clients opened the garden as planned, and it delivered. Here’s what they said:

“Everything went perfectly. Anna listened to the brief and actually improved on our brief and gave us things we hadn’t even thought about. We opened the garden for the [Yellow Book] open gardens in June and it was incredibly received – there were lots of ‘wow’s. Two months after it was planted the garden was just glorious – it has been a real pleasure to look at it and be in it.”

Building and planting a show-quality garden through winter and spring is ambitious. Opening it to visitors before the perennials have properly established themselves was a risk. But when clients trust the process and plants settle in nicely, it all comes off.