Paul Bangay is a top international garden designer and has designed gardens all over the world.
And he described his own garden, Stonefields, as the sum of all his ‘travels and inspirations’.
Now he has expressed this inspiration in his latest book ‘Paul Bangay – A Life in Garden Design’.
He writes about his early childhood influences, the gardening books of the past that inspired him, the mentors that provided him with opportunities, and the travels that introduced him to new design ideas that he could adapt for his gardens. It is a well-told story, rich in details and an inspiration for us smaller gardeners and gardeners.
Let’s take a look at how inspiration turns into a beautiful garden and ask Paul where he believes garden design is going next.
What is now Stonefields was a cow pen when he first saw it. But he looked at the view and knew they could build a stunning house and gardens there.
And although it is an extraordinary garden, we can learn lessons from it.
Designing ‘A Life In Garden’, Paul says the site ‘reminded me of how the Italians create their perfectly placed and proportioned villas’. When he first visited Stonefields, he parked his car where the house now stands and realized what a stunning view the house could provide. So he was heavily influenced by Italy in his design.
Influences of garden style
A life in garden design traces Paul’s influence on gardening in his life. He cites Vita Sackville-West, Sissinghurst and the ‘English garden style’ as his earliest influences.
Paul Bangay cites Vita Sackville-West as one of his early garden influences. The rose garden at Stonefields has the style of an English country garden.
As you approach Stonefields, you see a house framed by a circle cut in a hedge. The central chain – the stream of water in the middle – is influenced by Iranian garden design. It’s a stunning yet simple way to frame a home.
Spicy licorice grows around the iron ring.
Make a change of pace with garden rooms
Even if you only have a small garden, it’s interesting to see how you can change the pace by dividing it into ‘garden rooms’. Paul Bangay does it magnificently at Stonefields.
It is also practical. The beautiful view of Stonefield is a result of its position on top of the hill. And that makes it a very windy place.
So, dividing the garden with hedges and walls not only creates a more interesting garden. It creates a more protected.
Note the contrast in atmosphere in different parts of the garden. Right behind the house, the garden is open and festive.
On both sides are smaller, more intimate garden rooms, more intensively planted.
Change the pace by creating different ‘garden rooms’. You can also protect the garden from the wind by dividing it with hedges and walls.
Cut-out box shapes on the ‘ground floor’ in front of the house. It is an unusual interpretation of a formal garden, using simple shapes and repetition to create an impression.
Design details – how to connect different garden themes
If you look at the design details at Stonefields, you can see tips that we can all use in our gardens.
Although there are probably around 10 or more ‘garden rooms’, all different in character, they are unified by the use of a beautiful blue colour.
You can connect different elements in the garden, repeating the color of the paint throughout the garden. This attractive blue color is used throughout the garden, visually linking a number of very different garden rooms.
Using the view also ties the garden rooms together. As you walk from one area to another, your eye is guided by balanced planting compositions and gates. You are drawn to keep exploring.
Check out the view over Stonefields. Paul Bangay uses pillars, gates, steps and planting to draw the eye into the next garden room. You can see that the blue color is repeated, although the style of these gates is quite grand compared to the wooden gate in the previous photo.
This view leads the view from the neat, geometric, ruffled hornbeam hedge to a softer, more relaxed part of the garden. Paul Bangay is known for his mastery of balance and form in garden design.
Opposite view – a ruffled hornbeam hedge with a box hedge below and another hedge behind surrounds this garden room and leads to a driveway lined with box baubles. You can still see the blue gates.
Connect the garden with the environment
We don’t all have beautiful landscape views, but it’s always worth thinking about the architectural or geographical context when designing your garden.
For example, in this post Mark Walker used the location of his home in the Victorian seaside town of Margate as a starting point for his garden. And in this post on the basics of garden design, Catherine Heatherington reminds you to consider the bricks your house is made of when designing your garden.
Paul Bangay takes it one step further! U Life in garden design, he says he chose limestone for the house “to mimic the soil. It anchored the house in the landscape.’
It also merges formal boundaries with the view. The borders are in stronger, more defined colors than the landscape. But the planting forms echo the ancient eucalyptus forest beyond.
Paul created herbaceous borders that reflect the soft shapes of the landscape behind him. The muted gray of the ancient eucalyptus trees is the perfect backdrop for the purples and reds of Lepechinia salviae (Chilean Pitcher Sage) and Penstemon ‘Firebird’.
Paul chose the color of the house to echo the color of the soil, ‘anchoring the house to the landscape.’
The future of garden design – where to next?
In the end Life in garden design, Paul ponders whether to change Stonefields, but it is described as ‘perfect’. It would be hard to improve on that, so Paul’s next garden, where he will create his next chapter in garden design, is in England, in the Cotswolds.
But he believes garden design is changing. ‘We all see the consequences of climate change. Australia is getting hotter and drier. Great Britain is getting wetter and then drier. Therefore, we are looking for greater resilience in gardens. To me, that means planting native plants. It was a great new direction.’
He also says that you should be aware of ‘what the landscape requires’. This means less harsh landscaping and the use of local or recycled materials. It is important to ensure that gardens drain properly into the ground rather than overloading city drains and causing flash floods.
Paul believes that softer, perennial plantings that are weather-resistant and attractive to local wildlife will be a strong design direction in the future.
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