Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London

My aim for the gardens around the Zaha Hadid extension to the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, which opened in 2013, was to use naturalistic planting to complement and enhance the building as well as to merge the garden with Kensington Gardens, the royal park in which it is situated. 

The dramatic swooping design of the new extension is echoed in the ebb and flow and fluid lines of the garden space we have created.  An old yew hedge between the garden and the park was lowered to allow park views into the garden.  In front of the hedge, and surrounding the back of the extension restaurant, herbaceous plants and grasses seem to tumble from the raised bed.  Nearby, the large bed backed by a wall painted white, to be used for video art, is also the perfect backdrop for my planting of grasses, lower interesting herbaceous plants and some culinary herbs, which the chefs use in their everyday cooking for the restaurant.

At the front of extension, a wave of tiered buxus is planted in the shape of a green wave, flowing towards the building with pennisetum threaded through it punctuated with clumps of miscanthus.