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Tranquil
spaces
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Transform your exterior spa spaces with our selection
of the most beautiful and inspirational garden designs
from this year’s RHS Chelsea Flower Show
I
European Spa would
like to thank the Royal
Horticultural Society
for their help with
this feature. For more
information on the
2013 event, please
visit www.rhs.org.uk
[Report by Sarah Todd]
ntroducing a botanical element to your spa
offering will create an enduring and authentic
experience for your guests. Not only do green
spaces provide soothing places for reflection, but
they can also serve to anchor your guests to your
specific location, treatment ingredients and even cuisine.
As spas worldwide become ever more sophisticated,
imaginative garden design will play an increasingly
significant role to reinforce ecological ethos and
uniqueness. Yet, too often, this vital space can be
overlooked, or hastily put together as an afterthought
by designers who do not recognise the opportunity.
Even if you are designing or refurbishing a city spa
with limited space, the simplest of natural elements like
a roof garden or vertical planting will enable your guests
to enjoy a deeper connection with nature.
One of the most spectacular and comprehensive
horticultural events of the year worldwide is the
renowned Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Chelsea Flower
Show, which takes place in London every summer.
Notably, RHS competition gardens showcase a range
of innovative and beautiful design ideas. This year, we
wanted to shared eight award-winning and diverse
designs that will have particular relevance to spas.
From artisan rooftop gardens to intelligent rainwater
management, here is our menu of inspiration to
transform your outdoor space.
european spa | www.europeanspamagazine.com
Design inspiration
Eco authenticity
From the London Olympic Park 2012 Gardens designer Nigel Dunnett came the
modern and environmentally positive RBC Blue Water Garden. An interpretation of
the traditional ‘paradise garden’, the central feature of this design are bioswales,
where excess rainwater is channelled and stored. With dramatic, naturalistic
and exuberant planting throughout, swathes of Turk’s cap lillies grew as if in their
natural habitat. Exploring the concept of artful rainwater management, the garden
showcases how a sustainable concept and support for biodiversity can form the
basis for the design of even the most formal garden. This innovative concept would
be ideal for any eco-forward spa to consider.
RBC Blue Water Garden
Designer: Nigel Dunnett and The Landscape Agency
http://bluewater.rbc.com
www.landscapeagency.co.uk
Eco-forward design: Bioswale
landscape elements are used
to channel and store rainwater
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IMAGE: © RHS Images
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Design inspiration
IMAGES: © RHS Images
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The art of topiary
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Winner of Best Show Garden two years
running, Cleve West’s Brewin Dolphin
Garden illustrates how topiary can be
used to beautiful effect. Ideal for spas
with limited external space, topiary, an
art that first began its resurgence in the
19th century, is a popular, compact choice
for adding interest. The Brewin Dolphin
Garden uses controlled topiary structures
– including beech hedging and yew – to
create a hint of mystery and timelessness
as a contrast for looser layers of
herbaceous planting.
The Brewin Dolphin Garden
Designer: Cleve West
www.brewin.co.uk
Urban rooftop inspiration
Although the Rooftop Workplace for Tomorrow
garden was created to challenge the perception
of traditional offices, many of its ideas could also
transpose easily to a spa setting. Created from an
unused urban rooftop, it features contemporary
hanging chairs while a lounge area under the
weatherproof canopy could equally be used for
conference or chilling out. Also featuring a video
screen projecting sound and visuals, the space is
surrounded by beautiful planting while the green
roof and wall are inter-planted with fresh herbs.
For urban spas with rooftop access, a green roof
could be an ideal addition. One of the most easily
transferable concepts of this space is that visitors
were encouraged to pick their own herbal teas to
drink in the garden. Spas could also be inspired
by the idea that an office need not necessarily be
inside, or even have four walls.
Rooftop Workplace of Tomorrow
Designer: Patricia Fox at Aralia for Walworth
Garden Farm, sponsored by RBS
www.walworthgardenfarm.org.uk,
www.aralia.org.uk, www.rbs.com
Clockwise from top: The
Brewin Dolphin Garden
combines modern colourful
plants with traditional
topiary and ancient stone;
its gates and stone pillars
provide historical reference;
the planting on the roof in
The Rooftop Workplace of
Tomorrow; and its herb gardens
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Literally landscaping
The Brontës’ Yorkshire Garden was inspired by a location
the famous sisters used to visit to discuss their ideas and
writing, Top Withens. Now a popular tourist destination,
it is believed to be the setting for the Earnshaw family
house in Wuthering Heights. The RHS Chelsea garden
designed by Tracy Foster features a stream, a clapper
bridge and elements of the landscape characteristic
of the Pennine Moors. The garden also serves as a
celebration of the 165th anniversary of some of the
Brontë sisters’ most famous works – Jane Eyre, Wuthering
Heights and Agnes Grey. Showcasing how clever
landscaping and planting – by Aire Valley Landscapes
and Richard Clegg – can transform even the smallest of
spaces to be evocative of an entirely different space, this
artisan garden was a Gold Medal winner.
The Brontës’ Yorkshire Garden
Designer: Tracy Foster, for Welcome to Yorkshire
www.tracyfostergardendesign.co.uk
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IMAGES: © RHS Images
Everlasting nature
The L’Occitane Immortelle Garden recreates the
island home of the brand’s skincare collection –
Corsica – and features its essential ingredient.
The products are formulated using essential oils
from the bright yellow ‘immortelle’ (‘everlasting’)
flower, which grows in the country’s high rocky
terrain. A small lagoon, sandy beach footpath
and typical bergerie (sheepfold) completed the
display. Seeking to illustrate the close relationship
between man and horticulture, this rustic, wild
garden should provide fantastic inspiration
for spas looking to reference their indigenous
surroundings by planting trees and flowers typical
to their native location.
The L’Occitane Immortelle Garden
Designer: Peter Dowle
www.loccitane.co.uk
european spa | www.europeanspamagazine.com
Design inspiration
Clockwise from left: Loungers
and a natural plunge pool are
the focus of the Tranquility
Set in Stone garden; the
seating terrace at L’Occitane
Immortelle; its planting,
including the yellow Immortelle
flowers; the clapper bridge
provides focus in The Brontës’
Yorkshire Garden
Meditative surroundings
Sponsored by Global Stone Paving, the Petra–
Tranquility Set in Stone garden was created as a
quiet, peaceful space, carved into the bedrock of
a woodland area. Three dramatic seats set into
the rock offer a meditative space, enclosed by
wildflower meadow planting that spreads around
from the rear of the garden to the front section.
The garden also includes a filtered natural plunge
pool with marginal planting resting at its edges.
The curved lines of the paving were designed to
draw visitors in to enjoy the small cut lawn at its
centre. This secluded garden would be ideal as a
tranquil addition to a spa with space.
Petra–Tranquility Set in Stone
Designer: Benjamin Wincott
www.kingslandscapes.com
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Design inspiration
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Clockwise from left: The
Japanese Satoyama Life
garden (left); The Soft
Machine’s exercise bike, used
to pump waste water to filters;
and its bog-style planters
which also filter water
Natural harmony
The winner of the Best Artisan
Garden award, Satoyama Life, was an
expression of the importance of living
in harmony with nature in modern
times. Designer Kazuyuki Ishihara
drew inspiration from Satoyama, an
area that lies between the lowlands
and the mountains in Japan, where
residents live a simple life attuned
to nature. Kazuyuki used a thinning
out technique traditionally used in
Japanese flower arrangement to
highlight the plants and deciduous
trees that bud all at once in the
Satoyama. The design should
inspire spas wanting to showcase
sustainability in their green spaces.
Satoyama Life
Designer: Kazuyuki Ishihara
www.rhs.org.uk
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Biodiversity fun
IMAGES: © RHS Images
Designed by ecosystem specialist Tomaz
Bavdez, inspiration for The Soft Machine
garden’s title came from the William Burroughs
novel of the same name, where ‘soft machine’
is a synonym for the human body. Primarily
created for processing and recycling waste,
the garden design and engineered ecosystem offers opportunities for gardening,
exercising, enhancing biodiversity and a novel
way to recycle waste – the energy created by
a person cycling on an exercise bike pumped
waste water to the filtering units. With the
ground and the bog-style planting serving as
additional water filters, this bold garden would
be an inspired addition to any spa wanting to
offer guests the opportunity to participate in
biodiversity at its most interesting and fun.
The Soft Machine
Designer: Tomaz Bavdez
www.tomazbavdez.com
european spa | www.europeanspamagazine.com