BBC Gardeners World Live
A garden in microcosm, the border has at its apex a beautiful water butt which symbolises the need for people to harvest water when it rains which we can use on the garden when it’s dry rather than using tap water. With experience of a garden that has two different plant requirements, Tessa has used on one side of the butt plants that thrive in damp and partially shady conditions and to the other, she progressively uses plants that like dryer conditions ending with those that, once established, will withstand drought conditions.
The plants chosen are either flowering in mid-June or have some feature that gives the border interest at the time of the show and then, in a real-life situation, would look wonderful as the year progresses.
Tessa has won a Silver Award for her Beautiful Border at Gardeners’ World Live 2019. The 6 x 1.5m border has been designed to highlight the need for resilient gardens in a changing climate.
Beautiful Border from the dry end on a wet day
Thalictrum tuberosum and Geranium Orion 
Primula beesiana and Osmunda regalis 
Astrantia major ‘Abbey Road’ and Primula beesiana 
Stipa tennuisima, Dianthus carthusianorum and Geranium Orion 
Cirsium rivulare Atropurpureum
The water butt, used symbolically in the show garden, would be attached to the down pipe in real life and with a diverter attachment would collect the rain runoff from the roof which would ordinarily run into the sewers. From a roof surface area of 96sqm and with the average annual rainfall of 64L in South East UK it is possible to collect over 100,000L of rain water annually. Much more than the single butt can collect!
Artist’s Impression
Crystal Palace Back Garden Re-design
The client wanted to create a journey from the house to the rear of the garden. To create this a brick path would replace the old, uninteresting concrete one. A small patio on the sunny, south-facing side of the garden would be a stopping off spot to sit with a cup of tea or cool drink. The path continues to the end of the garden past flower borders and a beech hedge ending at the working end of the garden.
A small lawn is retained and a new herb border created nearest to the house. The existing wisteria will be trained over a new western red cedar bespoke pergola.
Construction completed autumn 2019 by Edward Davies Design
tessa parikian garden design 