Rich tapestry

In west London, Butter Wakefield has created a timeless and immersive garden that's inviting to people and pollinators alike

- KATE JACOBS

In the garden of this charming, stucco-fronted villa in London's fashionable Notting Hill, garden designer Butter Wakefield has combined her passions for design detail, sustainability and storied planting. The house was remodelled by architects Michaelis Boyd for a couple relocating from the USA, along with their four young children. The renovations included a basement extension for a new swimming pool, and so the first two-thirds of the plot were "a void" with a blank canvas of lawn in the rear section.

What the garden did have, unusually for London, were two matching, attractive, old boundary walls. A gate set into the rear wall opens on to a communal square, and this shared space means the garden isn't overlooked or shaded by houses at that end, making it brighter than many city gardens. It also provides a leafy borrowed landscape.