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Tiffany Daneff visits a recently built property in the Home Counties, which proves that, with forethought, a new garden needn't look new

- Tiffany Daneff

HOW do you make an imposing new house sit easily in its setting, not to mention look comfortable in the H landscape? This was the key question for the designer Libby Russell, when she and Emma Mazzullo of Mazullo + Russell took on this project in the Home Counties in 2017.

Builders were still working on the house itself, so the team initially focused on the boundaries. The plot is shaped like a slightly squashed bell, with neighbouring gardens on either side and a long border with the road at its base. The view, which is considerable, extends beyond the crown of the bell as the garden opens out into the landscape.

The previous house had been knocked down to make way for the new one, but many trees and shrubs from its garden remained mature Scots pines, beeches, horse chestnuts and oaks, although a handsome red oak proved to be diseased and had to be cut down. The many rhododendrons that thrive on the acidic soil include the almost-too-successful, mauveflowering Victorian import R. ponticum, as well as several red varieties. This was all good news as, 'the client wanted trees, the whammy of the rhododendrons and colour'. Privacy was also important.

The existing trees and shrubs were mostly gathered around the boundaries and, with a bit of shaping, many have been successfully integrated into a new woodland walk around the perimeter of the garden.

Screening the house from the road needed to be effective, but subtle. 'We didn't want the hedge on the boundary with the road to feel too claustrophobic, so we did tiers of yew and hornbeam, which are kept tightly clipped,' says Mrs Russell. This works very well, with the fresh greenery of the hornbeam lightening the Styx-dark yew, and the double thickness muffles the noise of passing cars. On the other side, yew cubes, small trees and roses nicely break up the long evergreen hedge.