A masterplan, working drawings and planting plans were designed for this 19th-century country house sitting within a 20-acre estate just outside of Edinburgh. The design encompasses a new drive, green areas around the house, a labyrinth, a moated garden, a large parterre with herbaceous borders, a walk of laburnum arches flanked by grasses, a scented garden near the main living rooms and a design for a garden north of the house, where a beautiful ancient dovecote sets the tone for the new ballroom garden—a perfect place to reference some of the site’s history and the owners’ wide-ranging interests. The house’s likely links to the Knights Templar inspired a central pool in the shape of the cross pattee in the ballroom garden, which I surrounded with simple plantings of roses, deschampsia and topiary cut into the shape of planets relating to the house.
The project was particularly challenging and interesting because it is surrounded by--and in some areas is part of--Jupiter Artland, an impressive and beautiful sculpture park open to the public.