Garden Design Journal: Working In The Public Realm

Can our curiousity save landscapes?

Joe Perkins MSGLD's Garden for the Future at Sheffield Park in Sussex is not just a space for the public to enjoy. Its planting has been carefully selected to test for resilience to harsh conditions, to help inform those facing the challenge of caring for Britain's heritage landscapes. Arabella St John Parker finds out more.

A few months after the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Joe Perkins MSGLD received an email from Laura Booty, General Manager at the National Trust-owned Sheffield Park and Garden in Sussex.

'She and others from the wider National Trust organisation had seen the Facebook Garden I'd created for that show' Joe recalls, 'and they'd decided to invite me to tender for a project to create a new garden within the historic landscape at Sheffield Park and garden.'

He was given a brief - 'it was very long and very well defined' - and asked to submit a design concept. 'The submission was followed by an interview and then another rather more developed submission, and that was followed by another interview before I was selected in March 2020.'

Things were almost immediately put on hold however as the country entered a period of lockdowns in response to Covid-19. The project was resumed the following year, and The Landscaping Consultants began constructing the garden in January 2024.

'That was completed in April 2024 but because the plants needed to remain in quarantine at Kelways for another year' Joe explains, 'we put in a temporary wildflower scheme across the site'.

The final plant scheme is now in situ and the garden, which is the first major development to be undertaken at Sheffield Park since the Trust acquired it in 1954, was officially opened this July.

Read more in the October issue of Garden Design Journal