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Garden Visit: Colm Joseph’s SGD Award-Winning Walled Garden

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Garden Visit: Colm Joseph’s SGD Award-Winning Walled Garden

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Garden VisitIssue — Garden Visit

Garden Visit: Colm Joseph’s SGD Award-Winning Walled Garden

February 13, 2025

The Society of Garden Designers, a professional association founded in 1981 for garden designers in the U.K., has been handing out awards to gardeners for the past twelve 12 years. They presented their awards last Friday night, and as in the past, this year’s picks celebrate the best of garden and landscape design in the U.K. and abroad.

Sarah Eberle won the Garden of the Year Award for her Oxfordshire project, and Haruko Seki secured the Judges’ Award for a jewel box of a private patio in London. (You can find the full list of winners here.) But the project that caught our eye was the winner of this year’s People’s Choice Award, which is the only award to be determined by public vote; it was given to garden designer Colm Joseph for a walled garden in an historic East Suffolk site. 

Voters (a mix of the public and garden design industry peers) were impressed by the skillful modulation of the garden over three interconnecting spaces and remarked on the beautiful transitions between them. They also commented on the “expertly handled planting” that provides interest throughout the year, saying it was “definitely a garden you would want to live with.”

“It was a lovely surprise to win the People’s Choice award and such a great feeling to know that people took the time to vote for it,” Joseph tells us. “I think people have responded to the planting-led design, as well as the combination of modern and traditional, with the contemporary, naturalistic planting design set within an old Victorian walled garden.”

Below, a peek at the crowd-pleasing design.

Photography by Richard Bloom, courtesy of Colm Joseph Gardens.

 “I wanted to create an imaginative, naturalistic garden that felt connected to the local Suffolk landscape,” says Joseph of his SGD People’s Choice Award-winning garden. The garden surrounds a modern home and is contained within the walls of an old walled garden. Gravel paths connect destination points and meander through the soft, immersive plantings.
Above: “I wanted to create an imaginative, naturalistic garden that felt connected to the local Suffolk landscape,” says Joseph of his SGD People’s Choice Award-winning garden. The garden surrounds a modern home and is contained within the walls of an old walled garden. Gravel paths connect destination points and meander through the soft, immersive plantings.
Silver birch trees help to create the “rooms” within the garden. Joseph notes that the stems also offer transparency at eye level, framing and filtering views through the garden. Among the key plants pictured are Euphorbia schillingii, Cenolophium denudatum, Sesleria autumnalis, and flowering bulbs, including Allium atropurpureum.
Above: Silver birch trees help to create the “rooms” within the garden. Joseph notes that the stems also offer transparency at eye level, framing and filtering views through the garden. Among the key plants pictured are Euphorbia schillingii, Cenolophium denudatum, Sesleria autumnalis, and flowering bulbs, including Allium atropurpureum.
 “People have responded with a lot of love for this garden, wherever I’ve shared images of it. It’s a design with a lot of thought, care, and attention to detail, especially in its spatial composition and its hard and soft material palette,” says Joseph. “But it has the appearance of a deceptively simple, calm, and restful garden, which people can imagine themselves relaxing in.”
Above: “People have responded with a lot of love for this garden, wherever I’ve shared images of it. It’s a design with a lot of thought, care, and attention to detail, especially in its spatial composition and its hard and soft material palette,” says Joseph. “But it has the appearance of a deceptively simple, calm, and restful garden, which people can imagine themselves relaxing in.”
Within the walled garden, Joseph created a series of interconnected garden spaces, including this dining area furnished with Hay’s popular Palissade dining set. The clay pavers echo the coloring of the old brick walls.
Above: Within the walled garden, Joseph created a series of interconnected garden spaces, including this dining area furnished with Hay’s popular Palissade dining set. The clay pavers echo the coloring of the old brick walls.
 This view shows the front of the home’s modern architecture, which is surrounded by a minimalistic planting of ornamental grass (Calamagrostis ‘Karl Forester’) and clipped beech trees (Fagus sylvatica). The grasses are left uncut through the winter.  
Above: This view shows the front of the home’s modern architecture, which is surrounded by a minimalistic planting of ornamental grass (Calamagrostis ‘Karl Forester’) and clipped beech trees (Fagus sylvatica). The grasses are left uncut through the winter.  

To see the rest of the 2025 SGD Awards winners (there are 21!), head here. The organization has also announced that it will be changing its name to the Society of Garden and Landscape Designers (SGLD) to reflect the “the diverse and evolving nature of the Society, as well as the size and scope of projects that its members undertake.”

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