Some of you may remember we bought a tiny terraced house in Richmond in March this year for me to live in during the week when I’m working in London and for the ‘kids’ to be based in now they too are working in London (well, one of them is…).
When we bought the property the garden was like this (except without the pots and furniture, as obviously the vendor took those)
I loved the walls and paving but didn’t like the rather orange-y fence. I also wanted some more permanent planting but didn’t want to have to start digging up the paving, and so settled on buying two large troughs.
We also chose to buy seating – rather than a table and chairs – and went with this contemporary, grey seating which felt appropriate for a ‘town’ garden (and is amazingly comfortable).
With regard to planting, it needed to be simple as the space is so small, and, as it would mostly be used in the evenings I thought white would be a good colour to feature.
Interestingly, when I was doing my design course I seemed unusual in struggling to incorporate white in my planting plans. I always feel it’s ‘different’ and doesn’t sit very comfortably with other colours, except perhaps blues, and so consequently I have little of it in the garden on the Isle of Wight. You may remember I made the Grass Bed white last year, but I have little white ‘intermingled’, consequently, the idea of ‘playing’ with white was appealing.
I also wanted scent and so planted some Nicotiana alata ‘Grandiflora’ and Sweet Pea ‘Mrs Collier’ seeds.
We painted the fence grey (a little darker than I’d envisaged) and then the OH found the black trellis, which we attached to the fencing.
Evergreen climbers, both Clematis armandii ‘Apple Blossom’ and Passiflora ‘Snow Queen’ – a relatively new introduction with larger flowers than ‘Constance Eliott’ and said to be more disease resistant – are being trained against the trellis. I’m hoping that in winter, when the planting in the troughs has all died off, the climbers will largely have covered the trellis and so a green outlook can be retained.
(My thoughts to plant a ‘Claire Austin’ rose were deemed too ‘obvious’ by the son, hence the Passion Flower, which, although supposed to be scented I don’t suppose for a minute smells as good as ‘Claire’!)
I’ve also added three Cosmos Purity plants which are only now coming into flower. The bought bedding at the front has struggled in the hot weather. 
The sweet peas are in a pot, next to pots of the daughter-requested strawberries and are only just getting going. The strawberries are a variety called ‘Buddy’ which are supposed to be very long fruiting, but in this, their first year, they’ve not surprisingly produced nothing.
There is also a tiny bed by the back door (not shown) which, happily, already has a Trachelospermum jasminoides planted in it which I’ve been tending very carefully as it fits the theme perfectly.
As you can see, it really is tiny, but it’s been a joy to be able to sit out these warm evenings and enjoy the white blooms glowing in the dusk – and even more of a joy to be able the water the whole garden in less than 10 minutes!
And as for scent, I’m pretty pleased with that too – you can even smell the perfume from the upstairs bathroom!
