Photography by Jim Powell for Gardenista.
Since the 12th century there has been a ‘”Great Garden”‘ next to the River Thames in central London, originally occupied by the Knights Templar. Lawyers quickly followed, easily outlasting the crusading knights: they have been the main residents at the Temple for the last 700 years.
A glow of purple from the shady ground cover Liriope muscari can be glimpsed through gaps in the hedge along the Victoria Embankment.
Tufts of Miscanthus nepalensis in the foreground, with self-seeded Clematis ‘Lambton Park’ spilling on the ground, just out of the way of the main path.
In the early 20th century, William Robinson, the iconoclastic “wild” gardener (who was at his most vocal when Edwardian gardens were at their most gaudy and wasteful), was a consultant at the Inner Temple.
Big buildings, textural planting. The tops of double decker buses passing by the river end of the garden is less of a problem than the lawyers’ buildings themselves, which are almost all 20th century reproductions. Ignore it, filling the borders with plenty of movement and height, plus color.
Behind this great distracting symphony is a car park. The garden was given a lasting design by Robert Marnock, curator of the botanical gardens at Regent’s Park, in the 1860s.
The main gates and this sun dial of 1709 survived the bombing in World War II, which destroyed most of the buildings.
Andrea’s collection of Coleus by the sun dial, with taller Tagetes ‘Burning Ember’, shows the kind of fearless planting more usually found at Great Dixter than in a London park garden.
Help yourself to walnuts. Tree circles may make incursions into the lawn but they prevent a patchy effect under trees, while avoiding soil compaction around the roots, since people do not park themselves at their base.
The Inner Temple Garden, from behind the High Border looking towards the River Thames.