Our Patch OCTOBER 2014
Before
& After
6,000 miles later, and Cordelia Smith finally
creates her ideal garden in Brook Green with
a pizza oven and a little help from friends
A
garden with a house
attached! That was the
brief Brook Green resident
Cordelia Smith set herself,
moving to Hammersmith
after 20 years in San
Francisco. She found her dream garden
three years ago in W6 and spent 18
months transforming the unloved
outdoor space into a lush, green
paradise.
“I grew up in west London,” she says.
“After 20 years of not having a proper
garden while living in America I wanted
one. And when I bought the house, the
garden was a great size but
in a terrible state. The developer had
purchased the building from the
council and transformed the eight
bedsits back into a family home.
“But when it came to the garden, I
discovered he was just going to deck the
whole lot! I was flabbergasted. I took
over from there. I immediately visited
the Chelsea Flower Show to get some
inspiration, where I found awardwinning designer Jo Thompson to
assist. And we set to work.”
It didn’t turn out to be as easy as
putting down turf and planting some
flowers. First came the heavy lifting.
Cordelia drafted in Trussley Roadbased landscape design firm Shoots &
Leaves, which dug out her entire garden
– and even had to remove part of an old
bomb shelter in the process.
“We removed about 30 tonnes of
spoil and rubble from the garden,” says
Hew Stevenson, founder of Shoots &
Leaves. “We ground out tree stumps,
patched up walls and even had to
carefully drive the digger through the
immaculate house. Luckily, we didn’t
even make a scratch.”
Then came the pizza oven. Inspired
by her time in California, Cordelia had
Hew’s team create a wood-burning
gastronomic party-starter at the rear of
the garden, sheltered behind the
contemporary steel pergola.
“I wanted the garden to have the feel
of different rooms,” mum-of-five
Cordelia explains. “So I could stick my
sweaty boys down at one end and still
have a delightful dinner with my
neighbour at the other end.
“The oven can cook a pizza every
minute, so the lads think it’s the coolest
thing. We threw my nephew a birthday
party recently and it was very useful.”
The long garden has an expansive
feel thanks to being designed slightly
off-centre, which gives visitors the
feeling that they are being pulled
‘around’ it visually, Cordelia says.
That effect is aided by the circular
benches made by Hew’s team, along
with the staggered planted beds.
And she admits it was truly a
collaborative effort. Aside from Jo and
Hew, she called in help from Louise at
the W6 Garden Centre for advice on
the plantings and maintenance, and
Gecko Gardening have been training
and pruning her ever-expanding
wisteria.
“I adore my garden now,” Cordelia
says with a big smile.