White
South Australia
We are proud to announce that the winter garden ‘Hiems Hortus’ won 1st Place for the 2023 Best Feature Garden sponsored by Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society of SA.
‘Heims Hortus’ is latin for ‘Winter Garden’.
Here we explore what an appealing garden could be in the colder months of the year. Our guiding design principle in this garden was to address factors that limited garden use in winter, and to instead create an invitation to re-engage with the outdoors during this time.
We have taken inspiration from Bill Bensely. Bensley has a unique and quirky design aesthetic and subscribes to 3 overarching design principles. We respect and admire these principles and in turn they have inspired and guided our winter garden:
1.Build with purpose
2.Operate locally
3.Create respectfully
We then worked towards creating a garden that embodies these key overarching principles:
Principle 1: Build with Purpose – Designing a ‘Winter Garden’:
Winter is the season most associated with staying indoors and keeping warm. Planning a winter garden requires thought around the following descriptors:
•Warmth – Warmth is an inviter. With winter being the coldest season, our design centers around the fireplace being the greatest invitation to use the garden.
•Community – Around our focal fireplace is the curved bench seat, inviting the gathered to use the space. The garden celebrates the need to come together all year around.
•Dormancy – Winter is the season when many plants are dormant. To create a lush and inviting setting, and one that feels more alive than dormant, careful plant selection is required – please refer to our winter planting palette for selected plants.
•Interest for the senses – Visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory senses are all activated when there are several planned elements working together. Activating these senses becomes a further suggestion, or ‘pull’ for people to explore and stay in the garden. The visual sense is activated when the aesthetics of plant selection and materiality work together in harmony. Textural materials, or tactile elements – specifically the river rocks used on the bench seat and garden trim, elevate the experience. The auditory sense – hearing the rustle of the leaves, the crackling of the fire, combined with olfaction – the sense of smell – the scent of foliage, earth and firewood further creates an inviting experience.
•Wellness – More recently research has been undertaken to understand the wellness and healing effects of nature, the science of ‘eco-psychosomatics’ and ‘the biophilia effect’. Anecdotally, winter months often have a higher rate of illness. Focusing on the ways in which to encourage people into nature, specifically in winter, encourages a higher rate of wellness during this period.
The combination of warmth, community, careful plant selection and a scheme that focuses on activating the senses, creates a solid proposition to use the garden in winter – contributing to wellness and extending personal living space year-round.
Principle 2: Operate locally:
Our materials are all locally sourced, our team and suppliers are all proudly South Australian.
Principle 3: Create respectfully:
The materials and plants used in this design are respectfully sourced, and upon completion will be re-used. Our design inspiration is also respectfully acknowledged.
Plant Selection
- Kumara plicatilis
- Strelitzia nicolai
- Hedychium coronariu
- Rhapis excels
- Philodendron xanadu
- Ligularia dentata
- Alpinia zerumbet
- Limonium perezii
- Arthropodium cirratum ‘Te Puna’
- Dichondra repens
- Ophiopogon japonicus ‘Nana’
- Zoysia tenuifolia
Hardscape Specification
- Formed concrete bench seating
- River stones
- Bluestone cobbling
- Bluestone steppers
- Painted battens
