A pool, lawn for high-octane games and trampoline were all part of the mix. To improve the flow and access to the house, the house entrance was re-orientated, a new driveway created and an ever-practical garage built. There was no compromising on aesthetics and we softened it all with drought-resistant planting that will tolerate high temperatures during the Swiss summers and the reality of more hose-pipe bans in the future.

Originally the main house terrace was five steps above the garden, creating a separation between the two. By using the excavations from the pool to raise the garden level by 30cm we were able to reduce the number of steps to three and then split these between two levels: from the house to terrace and then a single step from the terrace to the garden. There is now an inviting pull from the house to the garden.

Dining and lounging areas are located on a generous terrace framed by lush planting including artemisia, salvias, scabius, eringieum and grasses. A small wall around the terrace creates a sense of security and alleviates the fear of pushing your chair back and toppling into the planting. The 4x10m tiled mirror pool and pool house are easily accessed by a single step to the side of the terrace, yet discreetly offset from the house ensuring they don’t dominate the garden view during the winter.

The material palette includes large-format porcelain on the terrace, chosen for its crisp, contemporary feel and practicality, Orev natural stone copings on the terrace walls and the side walls of the steps bring warmth and texture to the mix . Around the pool Kebony (thermopine) decking has aged to long, pale silvery lines, it’s soft and safe underfoot, and the splash from dive-bombing boys drains perfectly through the gaps in the boards.

As is often the case, the most challenging area: an awkward sloping sliver of land at the side of the house with no character or identity, became everyone’s favourite part of the new garden. Slow steps formed in kebony and edged in steel create a strong link between the front and back garden through what is now a gravel garden and the preferred route for all the family.

The climber, trachelospurnum (scented evergreen honeysuckle) and a steel planter wraps around the road-facing elevation of the pool house, turning an otherwise austere façade into a focal point from the road.

Team
Design: Semple Begg
Built by: Taïga , JA Marques Renovations and Aquafine.
Photography: Clare Tweedie

Semple Begg’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023 Gold Medal winning show garden, the Teapot Trust Elsewhere Garden was designed for children’s art therapy charity Teapot Trust and generously funded by Project Giving Back .

The Elsewhere Garden demonstrated how art therapy helps children by taking them Elsewhere, where, with support and imagination, they find the creativity to express and overcome their fears about their treatment.

Inspired by themes and imagery of children’s culture. We travelled to Wonka’s factory, to Oz and Wonderland where the inner world of a child’s anxiety is expressed as an outer wonderland and the natural world behaves in strange, unexpected ways.

In this magical place, anxiety was voiced through unusual shape and form. Two Picea abies ‘Inversa’ stood guard over a cool deep pond, their unusual creature-like form giving them strong character, trees as a child might imagine them. Perhaps coming to life when the lights go out, snuffling through the ferns and stooping to drink from the pond.

More joyful moments in a child’s art therapy experience were expressed in the ‘Dolly Mixture’ stream of Candelabra primula. Their bright pops of colourshimmering in the spray from the water balance sculptures with their playful spouts and dazzling gongs.

The Elsewhere Garden sought to transport visitors to their own ‘elsewhere,’ to stimulate their imaginations, to remind them what it is to be a child, to reawken ways of seeing and understanding. With the intention of giving an experience parallel to the process of art therapy.

Visitors were encouraged to engage with the hidden world of the garden via our interactive soundscape. Accessed through headphones, the soundscapes mixed the familiar with the strange and uncanny. Talking into the head of a watering can caused the grasses to ‘dance’ to the sound of each voice and stroking the leaves of a primula, wired to ECG pads allowed visitors to ‘hear’ the plant.

Taking a garden to Chelsea is an enormous undertaking for a charity, especially a small charity like Teapot Trust. We felt a deep responsibility to create a garden that not only communicated the power of art therapy to transform young lives but also to encourage visitor engagement, to stimulate questions, laughter and conversation.

The interactive nature of the soundscape and the inclusion of artworks by children made it easier for the charity volunteers to engage the public, to draw a link between the show garden and the vital work they do.

Semple Begg garden design are delighted to say that in this respect the garden was an enormous success, Teapot Trust reported an incredible public response to the show garden during Chelsea week, a 300-400% rise in online engagement, national press, TV and media coverage beyond their expectations and are seeking to expand their service nationally to help fulfil their aim that any child, anywhere in the UK can access their service.

Thanks to the support of Project Giving Back and NHS Greater Glasgow the Elsewhere Garden legacy will live on at the Royal Hospital for Children, Glasgow. All our wonderful trees, plants and shrubs have been carefully relocated to the much larger, open and sunny site.

Due to open in Spring 2024 the garden will be used for outdoor art therapy and all patients, staff and visitors will be welcome.

Semple Begg garden design are enormously grateful to grant-giving charity Project Giving Back who have made it all possible and to every member of the wider Teapot Trust Elsewhere Garden team.

Team list

Designers: Semple Begg (https://semplebegg.com)
Charity Partners: Teapot Trust (https://www.teapot-trust.org/)
Sponsor: Project Giving Back (https://www.givingback.org.uk/)
Contractor: Stewart Landscape Construction Ltd https://stewartlandscape.co.uk/
Artists: Kathy Hinde and Michael Begg (https://kathyhinde.co.uk/ and https://michaelbegg.studio/)
Plants: Kelways and Peter Beale Roses (https://www.kelways.co.uk/ and https://www.classicroses.co.uk/)
Trees: Deepdale (https://www.deepdale-trees.co.uk/)
Pond & stream: Water Artisans (https://waterartisans.com/)
Planting team: Polly Barfoot, Susanna Harley, Rachel Schofield and Natalie Wu.