Landscape design by Hamzah-Adam Desai of Tone & Manner.
Silver Medal winner at the 2022 RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival.
Designed by Hamzah-Adam Desai of Tone & Manner, this silver medal winning show garden at the 2022 RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival offered a refreshing take on what a low maintenance and eco-sensitive garden for a new-build home could look like.
A clear departure from the usual lawn-heavy layout of a garden, the design championed both biodiversity and resilience. Every plant selected was pollen-rich to support a broad range of pollinators and to be drought tolerant.
The garden design
The garden was designed with a first-time gardener in mind, who wanted to create something meaningful for their new-build home without feeling overwhelmed.
Designer Hamzah-Adam set out to show how simple, cost-effective choices could result in a low-maintenance garden that still feels considered and full of life.
The planting
In place of the standard turf lawn, the garden was reimagined with a traditional herbaceous border that gently blends into a simple gravel garden, incorporating a climate-friendly and low-maintenance solution with minimal watering required for the space.
The planting scheme is rich with pollen-heavy varieties to support a wide range of pollinators. Shades of pink and purple set the tone, with bright flashes of magenta from the Dianthus carthusianorum and the Agapanthus ‘Poppin’ Purple’. These are balanced by the textured silver tones of Eryngium yuccifolium and Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’.
A custom gabion bench brings added function, doubling as a bug hotel. Filled with leftover garden materials that cost nothing, it speaks to the resourceful and waste-conscious spirit of the garden.
The future of the garden
Following its time at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival, the entire garden was donated to Seabright Primary School in Hackney. Its pollen-rich planting continues to support pollinators and promote biodiversity and is now enjoyed daily by a new generation of young gardeners.
Key plant list
Tree
- Betula utilis subsp. jacquemontii (Multi-stemmed)
Herbaceous perennials
- Achillea ‘Credo’
- Agapanthus africanus
- Agapanthus ‘White Heaven’
- Armeria maritima ‘Splendens’
- Artemisia schmidtiana ‘Nana’
- Betonica officinalis ‘Hummelo’
- Echinops ritro ‘Veitch’s Blue’
- Erigeron karvinskianus
- Eryngium planum ‘Blue Hobbit’
- Eryngium bourgatii
- Eryngium x zabelii ‘Big Blue’
- Nepeta Neptune (Bokratune)
- Oenothera lindheimeri ‘Siskiyou Pink’
- Salvia nemorosa Caradonna ‘Pink Inspiration’
- Salvia nemorosa ‘Deep rose pink’
- Salvia verticillata ‘Purple Rain’
- Scabiosa caucasica ‘Perfecta Alba’
- Scabiosa incisa ‘Kudo White’
- Stachys byzantina
- Verbena bonariensis
- Verbena macdougalii ‘Lavender Spires’
- Verbena rigida
Shrubs
- Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’
- Convolvulus cneorum
- Lavandula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’
- Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’
- Pinus mugo ‘Mughus’
- Santolina chamaecyparissus
Succulents
- Sempervivum ‘Oddity’
- Sempervivum ‘Reinhard’
Grasses
- Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’
- Stipa gigantea
- Stipa tenuissima
Climber
- Trachelospermum jasminoides (Star jasmine)
Bulb
- Allium sphaerocephalon
Edibles
- Allium schoenoprasum
- Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurascens’
- Thymus vulgaris ‘Compactus’
- Thymus vulgaris
- Tulbaghia violacea
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Tone & Manner garden design was founded by award winning garden designer and gardener Hamzah-Adam Desai. Prior to this he spent 21 years working as a graphic designer and is a graduate of Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design.
With a firm grounding in design he combines his love of gardening and plants with spatial design creating innovative contemporary climate-friendly gardens which have a positive benefit on wildlife as well as his clients mental and physical wellbeing.
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Photography by Maria Svoskula
