Sarah has designs on your garden (From The Oxford Times)

Sarah has designs on your garden

11:00am Friday 11th December 2009 in Outdoors By Val Bourne

Sarah Naybour, who lives at Yarnells Hill in Oxford, has been named Student Designer of the Year by the Soicety of Garden Designers — beating off strong competition from students at colleges up and down the country.

Sarah, who also has a distinction in residential landscape architecture from the Oxford College of Garden Design, submitted a modern, minimalistic design that reflected her client’s love of gardening.

Duncan Heather, founder and principal of the Oxford College of Garden Design, said: “Sarah is an enormously talented and very motivated designer with an artistic background that supports our teaching ethos that garden design is an art form.”

Every nominated student had to submit a plan, a perspective, a plant brief and a sample planting plan.

Sarah, who has a Fine Arts background, had previously studied horticulture at Waterperry Gardens and the judges recognised the quality and authenticity of her work.

Her first commissioned private garden is already underway in north Oxford, and you sense that an exciting career is ahead for this very creative gardener.

Sarah chose the year-long course because it covered planting design and also went into construction in detail, including drainage, paving, fencing, brickwork and steps.

If you are wrestling with your own garden and trying to design it (rather than letting it rule you) Sarah’s advice is to look at the architecture and proportions of your house and take those as your starting point.

“The garden relates to the house and the walls tend to be square or rectangular. Mistakes happen when curvy lines are put right next to a building. Although a lot of people are afraid of straight lines they relate to buildings much more effectively. The trick is to soften the edges with clever planting.”

In Sarah's design the square and rectangular spaces she uses match the scale of the house and they balance each other.

“Curves will work if they relate to points on the rectangles or squares defining the design,” Sarah explained. Areas further away from the house could be more flowing. Flat sites can be made more exciting by creating levels. But again these have to be in scale.

In one of her projects there was a gentle slope and Sarah used curved grass terraces to form a bolder structure. This creates a contoured effect that is much more dramatic and pleasing to the eye than a slope.

“It also makes better use of the natural light quality,” Sarah added.

Once you have a strong structure in place the next step is to identify the function of each area — whether it is planting, storage, play, seating or a view. Once you have done that, define routes between these different areas.

“This is called creating ‘desire lines’,” Sarah explained. The layout of paths leads people through the garden so they instinctively follow that route.

Sarah's planting style is thoroughly modern and she enjoys using grasses and perennials that keep a presence in winter. These include her favourite plant, the purple cone flower or Echinacea purpurea.

These stiff-stemmed, deep-pink daisies have golden-brown middles which tone with everything. In winter the silhouette turns almost black and each stiff stem has a dark pincushion head.

Sarah used to live in Hong Kong “where seasons don't exist.” Those years away taught her how important seasonal light is.

As we sat looking out over her own garden, the late-October sunshine crept round and began to highlight the faded red heads of Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’. The golden afternoon haze and gentle movement gave these grasses a translucent gauzy quality. Gentle, tactile grasses like these could soften any straight line and relax the tensest person.

Sarah's tip for planting a garden is to use “greater numbers of fewer plants”.

You can plant in different ways. You could use five plants in a block and then repeat plant seven more somewhere else. Or you could use all 15 at once to create a swathe and not repeat them anywhere else. “Planting is a very personal thing. But, generally, if you use lots of different plants in ones and twos you end up with a disappointing garden. Have the confidence to plant in larger numbers,” Sarah advised.

Colour is another consideration. Sarah's favourite is purple because it can create different moods.

You can mix it with silver, or create a vibrant clash with orange. Sarah uses a grass-like plant with russet orange leaves (Libertia ixiodes ‘Goldfinger’) with a deep-blue salvia (S. x sylvestris ‘Mainacht’) and a moody tall bearded iris called ‘Superstition’.

The orange-headed Euphorbia griffithii ‘Fireglow’ echoes the orange libertia early in the year. Later the brown and orange crocosmia ‘Emily Mackenzie’ glimmers against the blues.

These plants have been chosen to create a rich scheme in her south-facing front garden. But they have to be deer-proof too. In other areas there are subtler, gentler combinations that marry ferns with hostas.

Chris Marchant of Orchard Dene Nursery near Henley-on-Thames, a very experienced plantswoman, taught the Oxford design students how to combine plants well.

Her technique is to examine the detail in each flower. A white plant with purple veins for instance will blend with purple or cool-toned pinks for instance.

At this early stage in her career Sarah is looking at what other designers do.

The New Zealand designer Anthony Paul is much admired for his natural landscapes. She also admires Tom Stuart-Smith who creates plant tapestries that manipulate colour and influence mood. Both are sensitive designers who realise that gardens are imaginative spaces that reflect the owner's personality. Much of Sarah’s success is due to Duncan Heather who has made the Oxford College of Garden Design one of the finest places to study the craft.