No straight lines – a family garden with a boulder fountain

From 2008, when the family moved in, the garden was what many gardens are after a house is built: green, but with no real concept. In 2021 we remodelled it – and the family's wish was unusually precise: no straight lines. Inspired by Feng Shui principles, everything was to flow.

So the path of fine small-sett paving curves its way through the garden, and a natural stone wall evens out the difference in height between lawn and path instead of emphasising it with an edge. The heart of the garden is the boulder fountain: a hollowed-out stone in which the water rests and quietly overflows – the family's favourite spot, with a view over the whole garden.

The planting is kept in purple – lavender, sage and bergamot – and that is not just a question of colour: these three are among the best bee plants a home garden can have. In October a Japanese maple takes over the colour, glowing red above the grasses. In between, there was room left for what a family with small children needs: a sandpit, a trampoline, lawn to run on. A garden has to do both.

Then there is the invisible side: soakaways take in the rainwater so that it stays on the plot instead of running into the sewer. And because a new garden needs the most attention in its first years, the garden stayed in our care afterwards.

What the family later told GartenArt, the magazine of the Gärtner von Eden, is the finest praise a redesign can receive – see above. More on these topics: perennial planting · walls and natural stone · fountains & water features.

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