Marney Hall's award winning designs have been inspired by her passion for nature since she first won a gold medal in 1995. 10 years on and Marney is now well known for her gardens that have drawn attention to conservation issues as diverse as British butterflies and tropical coral reefs. In 2004, her fantasy garden From Merlin to Medicine, designed for 4head, highlighted the healing properties of plants and their importance to modern medicine.No surprise then that the inspiration for The 4head Garden for Chelsea 2005 has been drawn from the natural environment.
Whilst diving a shallow ravine in the Red Sea, created by an earthquake less than 10 years ago, Marney was struck, yet again by the amazing rapidity with which nature colonises newly broken ground. The walls of the ravine were covered in soft corals, sponges and teemed with marine life - a new habitat formed in less than a decade. On the journey home through the mountain desert of the Sinai Peninsula, the road, constructed only 2 years previously, was in many places obstructed by rock falls that were neatly avoided by the bus driver who, thankfully, seemed familiar with the location of these landslides which in England would have closed the road for weeks! Nature was striking back yet again, this time destroying the order imposed by man's newly constructed road.
All around the Mediterranean, land, which for centuries has been farmed for olives, is now up for sale. An olive farmer can make more from selling one small plot of land for development than he can from harvesting bumper crops of olives for the next 100 years. The olive terraces are transformed when the trees are no longer tended and, once again, nature claims back her own. Plants, which for years have never bloomed, now flower again covering the terraces with carpets of wild flowers. The terrace walls too fall into disrepair, as the land awaits its new tenants.
These wild terraces are the setting for the 4head Garden 2005. The garden is a sheltered haven adjoining an implied new development, but the owners have left the outside of their garden in its natural state. Many plants from the hillside have been planted in the garden and a few on the hill have escaped from cultivation.
However, not only the plants are breaking in. Large rocks, present on the site, have been incorporated into the design and structures of the garden, and a rock fall has been utilised to form a waterfall that provides a cooling backdrop to this sheltered retreat. The wall encircling the design lends the garden a sense of security like an old and comfortable armchair, although there is nothing old fashioned about the curved walls, inspiration for which was drawn from Spanish architect Gaudi.
The planting is lush, with an emphasis on aromatic and perfumed plants. Roses, many of which owe their origin and breeding to this region, feature boldly in the plantings, along with a comprehensive selection of Mediterranean plants and others known to thrive in the mild climate of the region. The walls are clothed in vines, jasmine, bougainvilleas and geraniums, some of which climb from the garden whilst others tumble down the walls from the land above. Outside the walls the planting is natural - wild and colourful. Inside, the colour palette is restricted to colours that at their darkest are slate and claret through to pink, magenta and white, though the planting within the walls is wild and uncontrived.
The 4head Garden is a garden for anyone and everyone, a place to relax or entertain. An idyllic retreat perhaps, for a pair of Brits who seek the sun and a better way of life in a peaceful haven, somewhere in the Mediterranean. With its central focus of a rockfall and water feature, the garden also serves to remind us of the power of nature and the vital role played by water in our lives and those of plants - a role which WaterAid is working hard to extend to the most desperately deprived communities in the world
