Escape to the country

Mulholland House, Hampstead, London NW3, proves you can create abundance and plenty in the heart of the city, says Tiffany Daneff

- Tiffany Daneff

THE list of plants reads like that from an established country garden: phlox, hollyhocks, delphiniums, lupins, poppies, asters and dahlias, with broad beans in the vegetable beds, pots of strawberries and apples to pick. This is only a snapshot of the brimming beds and borders that fill this private garden in Hampstead, north London, which was planted in the autumn of 2019 and, only two years later, is humming with honeybees.

When Rebecca Glassberg moved here in 2017 with her husband and their young family, the garden had been mostly laid to the terrace for entertaining outdoors, but she had a very different vision for the red-brick Arts-and crafts house, which dates from 1910. ‘I wanted something with more color and more plants and to feel the seasons changing,’ says Mrs Glassberg. ‘I like to see a garden overflow with plants—that kind of Sissinghurst madness —so it all looks unplanned and busy.’