A step up
It was trips to Japan by both garden designer James Aldridge and the owners of this shady south London garden that inspired its calm, green, elegant look. “We used elements of Japanese design but the intention was never to make a Japanese garden,” explains James. “It was more to evoke the passion and love we both felt for Japan.”
It is– that have been pruned to highlight their sculptural qualities. At the back, a further step leads to another terrace where the late-afternoon sun warms a seating area arranged around a polished-concrete fire pit. Here the clients are screened by waving stems of bamboo on the back wall and a tapestry of scented climbers fixed to 1.8m-high wire mesh screens on the north side.
