W
e live in a clearing in
the forest,’ says Danish
landscape architect
Mette Fauerskov. ‘Theatmosphere comes from the trees all around us. It
is one of the things I love most about this place.’
Seventeen years ago, Mette, her husband, Jan,and their young twin daughters moved into a striking
Modernist house in the green outskirts of Aarhus,
on the Jutland Peninsula. ‘We had lived nearby, in a
larger house on a busy road, but as Jan and I spent
more time working in our garden the noise of the
traffic became more of a problem. Then by chance
I saw this house for sale. The decoration wasn’t to our
taste, but I could see that this was our dream home.’
A coat of paint and some stylish furnituretransformed the interior of the property, but the
garden presented more of a challenge. ‘It was totally
overgrown and full of ground elder,’ says Mette.
First, she and Jan planted a beech hedge around the
perimeter and then began clearing the wilderness. ‘It
took two years, but that gave me a chance to really get
to know the garden’ says Mette. By the time she had
a blank canvas, she knew exactly what she wanted to
achieve. ‘I wanted to emphasise the relationship
between indoors and outdoors. In the front garden
I made a mini forest of hawthorn underplanted with
ivy, all dark and leafy, to contrast with the experience
of light when you enter the house.’
On a bright summer’s day a decade and a half later,that contrast is startlingly effective. The front path
is mossy and dappled with shade, but push open the
front door and light bounces in all directions through
a wall of glass. The garden sparkles in shades of
green, from the tapestry of specimen trees at the
boundary, up a sloping lawn dotted with topiary,
to the broad terrace enclosed by a box hedge so
immaculately maintained that it might have been
created on Mette’s drawing board.
In the summer months, there are flowers as well.
A mass ofLavandula angustifolia‘Hidcote Blue’
spills onto the terrace, where black ceramic pots of
cosmos, argyranthemums and the daintyEuphorbia
hypericifoliaDiamond Frost create an effect both
informal and supremely stylish. In the wider garden,
the ornamentals are concentrated in one large bed
which is full of white roses and anemones, blue
aconites and salvias, silvery stachys and elegant
miscanthus. ‘The perennials are lovely, but are of
secondary importance,’ says Mette. ‘When we get very
old, they can be replaced by grass without destroying
the main idea, which is the combination of green
structures. I particularly love the elliptical hedges
which create a series of rooms left intentionally
empty, so they don’t have a purpose imposed on them.’
Mette had the site surveyed before starting work.
‘The land falls six metres from northwest to
southeast, which was a challenge. Since the valuable
trees are grouped around the perimeter, we left these
alone, but reshaped the middle of the garden.’ Black
steps, like the contour lines on a map, now emphasise
the curved shape of the regraded land.
A contractor built the structural elements, but
Mette and Jan did everything else themselves. ‘All the
topiary and hedges were grown from small plants,
and clipping them is now one of my favourite
activities.’ This is lucky because some pieces, such
as the half balls of privet on the sloping lawn, need
trimming every few weeks through the growing
season to stay neat. It is worth the effort. Set against
their formal backdrop, they look for all the world
like a family of turtles scurrying across the slope.
Part sculpture, part whimsy, perfectly positioned
and immaculately maintained, they encapsulate all
that is great about this quietly lovely garden. &INSPIRATION