Thinking outside the box…
Earlier this year, to our dismay, we discovered an outbreak of the dreaded ‘box blight’ at one of our regular clients gardens. Sadly the symptoms of the fungal infection were abundant in a parterre; designed and planted over 25 years ago!
Before the blight…
After long deliberations it was decided that one half of the mirror-image parterre (the badly affected side) would have to be dug up and destroyed to prevent spread of the disease to the rest of the garden. The other half however (exhibiting only minor patches of dieback) could potentially be saved through a careful treatment and feeding programme.
This provided us with a unique design opportunity; instead of replicating the existing arrangement with a box alternative and waiting another 25 years for it to look “as good”, we decided to literally ‘think outside the box’.
The plan: existing box parterre to the right, new oregano planting to the left.
A new planting design was based on the negative imprint of the original plan, whereby the hedges became paths and the gaps became planting. The design was planted with Origanum vulgare ‘Aureum’ (100 plants exactly) to create both height and colour contrast.
Before…
Marking out…
Planting calculations turned out perfect!
The finished product- can’t wait for the oregano to fill out the design!
