Through the round window
WIW 3 / Jan 2023
Where It Works Garden designer Sue Moffitt’s own garden (Redhill Lodge) in Rutland, by her company M360 Design (m360design.co.uk).
Why It Works This image doesn’t really need much explanation, does it? Yes, photographer Richard Bloom has an amazing eye, and yes, he’s found great timing in the winter weather, the plant colours, and the framing of this view.
But there’s something more. There’s a determined intention and laser-sharp eye by the creator of this garden – and especially the creator of this view.
Views, vistas, focal points…they are all subtly different but have a commonality in that they can all be darned tricky to pull off well. Contrived they can be, and sometimes the view (or at least the effect) that you had hoped to create just doesn’t quite work. On the flip side however, sometimes views (and perhaps the most special of them) happen by happenchance.
Haven’t we all been in a garden and cut down some branches or opened up a hedge and you suddenly get a glimpse of something you didn’t expect? It may be a tree trunk, a view into the distance, or a collection of plants seen from a different angle. Two dimensional plans can help, CGI may give an impression – but nothing really prepares you for a view or a vista or a focal point until you’re there, in the reality.
In this instance, the combination of the hard pyramidal sculpture, next to the softer variegated holly pyramid, sitting within the cropped stone circular window, is what makes it. It’s completely intentional but it works. You could argue that the russet leaves of the tree nip the top off the pyramid; or that the water’s edge plants are a bit messy.
But to me, that’s what makes this view. It’s a real garden. A lived-in garden that happens to have some well honed design techniques as part of it.
There’s also a trompe l’oeil effect going on with the photograph – tricking the eye to make the foreground feel closer, more intimate, while the two pyramids seem further away. Note too the way the sculpture and holly are on a raised mound, helping to elevate their stance against the water and fill the frame of the circle. There’s just enough room for the sculpture’s reflection to make us look south.
I love the horizontal ground plan of the green mound, supported by the near horizontal hedge behind; the repeated horizontal of the grass reflected below.
Then we look quickly up, to the tapered point of the pyramid cousins, repeated by the reeds on the right of the water. And all these elements happily housed through the round window.
Chris Young
PS: as a fellow Rutlander, I now have to visit this garden. And go visit soon I will.