Garden illustration
By Alice on
I was asked to create an illustration of Frances Tophill's garden that was at Gardeners World Live. I went to the show and walked around the garden and LOVED it. Frances' inspriration was the industrial heritage of Birmingham and the regeneration of urban space, softened with planting. I'm a particular fan of the greenhouse!
For the illustration, I started with the garden structure, adding in the wonderful greenhouse (made up from old windows), the huge 2 storey corrugated iron tower, the water feature, and the collection of belfast sinks. The garden was filled with edibles useful to us and to wildlife. The whole ethos of the garden was to have edible and medicinal plants that are resilient and really good for pollinators. I picked out just a few of the plants used; fox & cubs, fennel, nastursium, mashua, st john's wort, and added in some of the wildlife and pollinators like a hedgehog and garden birds, bees and butterflies.
This picture shows Frances, who worked on the garden with Rupert and Ruth and they won Best Show Garden!
:: https://www.instagram.com/francestophill