The English Garden April 2021

Page 40

M

atthew Spriggs’ walled town garden in Petworth, West Sussex, is made for spring. The compact, space is only 5.5m wide, but Matthew’s clever use of its 40m length means it is far more than the sum of its parts. And when spring finally comes around here, it brings with it a thoroughly celebratory array of candy-pink cherry blossom and jewel-bright tulips. Colour is so important for Matthew, who, with his sister Samantha, runs Petworth’s Spriggs Florist, a business that has been in the family since 1980. The shop on Golden Square was part of a townhouse that had been divided up with the shop on the ground floor. “Although there were windows and French

40 THE ENGLISH GARDEN APRIL 2021

Above A long gravel and basket-weave brick path creates an important vertical axis down the length of the garden.

doors going out into the garden, we couldn’t see any of that because there was a leylandii hedge obscuring the view,” Matthew recalls. “It wasn’t until the year 2000 that the property upstairs became available, and I moved in here the following year. I practically got rid of the hedge on the day I moved in!” There wasn’t much else in the garden besides the hedge, a scrappy lawn and too-narrow borders on either side of the garden. “There were a few shrubs, including one Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris, which I’ve kept, along with a rather nice yew tree at the end of the garden,” Matthew explains. As the creative director of Spriggs, Matthew has a keen eye for design. He began work on the garden by establishing a strong vertical axis and fashioning


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
The English Garden April 2021 by The Chelsea Magazine Company - Issuu