LI Student Member Marko Yau describes how an award winning garden was designed to raise awareness of the importance of climate resilience for coastal communities.
Alongside my colleagues James Miller and Saachi Parasrampuria, we designed the ‘Winds of Change’ garden for the Resilient Pocket Planting category at the RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival.
The purpose of the garden was to raise awareness of the importance of climate resilience for coastal communities. This resilient planting aimed to capture beauty and vulnerability of the coastal community, Jaywick Sands, on the North Essex coast. ‘Winds of Change’ was sponsored by Galloper Wind Farm, who are located in the North Sea of the North Essex & Suffolk coast. ‘Winds of Change’ was awarded a Gold Medal and Best in Category Award, this July.
One of the most pleasing things which we managed to pull-off as a team, was a high standard of horticultural finish and to showcase the importance of skilled plantsmanship and gardening in plant selection.
Design Intention
The design creates a climate resilient coastal pocket by selecting appropriate plant species, a colour scheme which reflects Jaywick, using native and non-native plants, known to grow in the local area and locally sourced materials, to create a resilient garden space for the community. The key was to create a space for the community which reflects the local character of the place. We, as landscape architects believe that site visits are crucial to understand the site and surroundings better to inform the design.
The planting palette was selected to be wind, salt and drought tolerant. The colour scheme reflected unique coastal location. Essex is the driest county in the UK, and it is set to get dryer in the future if some projections are correct. Jaywick Sands is particularly vulnerable to climate change because it lies below sea level, and the community has faced various social and economic challenges over recent decades. Despite this, the locals are upbeat and foster uniquely, strong community spirit against the odds.
Recycled materials and fly tipped objects were beach combed and intended to be thought provoking drawing attention to sustainability and the spirit of Jaywick. Broken and tide washed bricks, metal and timber pieces accentuated the garden space amongst the planting acting as focal elements. These found objects celebrate this connection to the resilience of place and community.
Planting Palette
Shoreline plants colonise the coastal found objects. Sea grasses such as Leymus arenarius ‘Blue Dune‘, saltbush (Atriplex halimus), Mediterranean subshrubs such as false dittany (Pseudodictamnus mediterraneus) and lavender cotton (Santolina chamaecyparissus) formed the structural backbone along with succulents like Yucca filamentosa ‘Gold Heart’, while a multi-stem Strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo was selected for climate resilience.
Fleshy, succulent and silver-leaved perennials like our native white stonecrop, Sedum album, white sea thrift Armeria maritima ‘Alba’ and sea kale, Crambe maritima reflect the coastal spirit of place. The sedum was grown in crushed, recycled aggregate on our allotment. Mediterranean geophytes included Asphodeline lutea, which will give interest in high summer. Four types of sea holly, Eryngium, added to the seaside atmosphere including Eryngium eburneum for height and Eryngium bourgatii Picos Amethyst (‘Mackpam’PBR) for ground level interest around found objects. Sea-blue colours came from Eryngium planum Magical Blue Globe (‘Kolmaglo’) (Magical Series), Eryngium × zabelii Big Blue (‘Myersblue’PBR) and Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’.
Garden Relocation
Following Hampton Court, the ‘Winds of Change’ garden was relocated to the entrance of Sea Way off, Tamarisk Way in Jaywick Sands in North Essex. The relocation site is Brownfield land which used to be the site of a café, which eventually closed and then burnt down. All the plants are growing in locally recycled, crushed aggregates. The work that John Little does at the Grass Roof Company in Essex informed this aspect of the garden. Tendring District Council has been very supportive of the project and they will help manage the maintenance of the garden along with the charity Jaywick Sands Community Forum, now and for the future. The Council plans to locate a memorial garden, which will be at the back of the site and will commemorate the local victims who lost their lives in the infamous 1953 floods. Other organisations who are supporting the current relocation process to Jaywick include; the Hardy Plant Society, Essex Gardens Trust, Pictorial Meadows and Lizard Landscape Design and Ecology.
Future of the Garden
‘Winds of Change’ is an exciting long-term project, and it will be exciting to watch the garden grow and be used by the local residents. The feedback has been extremely positive from local residents so far. Future maintenance will be one of the greatest challenges which faces the garden in the future along with coastal flooding. A perennial Pictorial Meadow Mix including Eryngium species will be sown into the vacant areas of the site, which is much larger than the plot at Hampton Court. There are some additional species like Sea buckthorn and Tamarisk which would be added to the landscape to link further with the local planting palette. An important take away from the project was to understand the importance of editing the planting palette as and when needed to keep the variety and health of the plants at stake. This will require highly skilled horticulturalists to manage the maintenance. Upskilling the people who look after the project will be an important aspect. It will be fascinating to watch the gardens evolve and change over time. The upskilling of the landscape managers will be important; tasks such as editing self-seeding plant populations will be important to maintain the naturalistic aesthetics of the garden.
If you would like more information about this project, please feel free to contact us or visit the gardens website, which we will be updating over the coming months.