Lavender and Rosemary - Fake Landscapes

lavender and rosemary

outdoor: UV and weather resistant

It may seem odd to have a whole section for this, particularly when lavender and rosemary have very similar leaves, but they’re actually really useful plants. The silver-grey leaves let us put together neutral zones of low planting, but with the option of subtle splashes of colour.

They also lend themselves to schemes which fall between the rigid structure of topiary and the wild-and-wonderful mixed planting we do. They’re so versatile that they often end up accompanying both of the other styles.

We’re not botanists (some of you are barely human… Ed.) but we do appreciate that ‘real’ lavender has a flowering season. In our defence there are a lot of similar-looking plants that do flower all year round. That’s why we have several tones of purple, plus blue and white (both UK varieties, allegedly!) and even a ‘budding’ green version.

As always, they’re UV, rain and (probably) alien-attack resistant, and we can make them up as drop-ins to fit existing planters if the project is a long way away. Have a look at the pictures here, but you’ll find also them lurking elsewhere on the site!

lavender and rosemary

outdoor:

UV and weather resistant

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I bet you thought we’d start with a splash of purple – but no, expect the unexpected! This is our cream-white lavender with a sprinkling of rosemary. It’s on a narrow patio with one of our shallow living walls behind, plus a 230cm bay teardrop for good measure. 681

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We don’t do as much ‘pure’ rosemary as we’d like, but it works really well as a monoculture. Looking at what’s being sold in the background, we wouldn’t discount the possibility those are anti-ram planters, as well! 682

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Another one of our Singapore projects, with the lavender being used to provide little splashes of purple in a sea of green. Nice laurel cubes, too – although a complete pain to make! 683

684 fake landscapes blue english lavender Puerto Andratx 1080DEF

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Carrying on with the ‘we-work-all-over-the-world’ theme (otherwise called showing-off!), this is on one of yer Balearics. It’s using our light blue lavender, chosen because it goes really well with sky and sea. Honestly. 684

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Back in London, a tiny patio that you can’t really get out on to unless you’re a contortionist, with a nice mix of the usual suspects. The pots are pretty small, the lavender one isn’t much more than 15cm high. 685

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We don’t do much planting underneath trees, preferring to keep it simple and just use slate - but this works really well. It may be because it’s picking up on lavender on the Juliet balconies above. 686

687 fake landscapes dark purple lavender in envelope planters

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Nice and simple, a couple of slim envelope planters with a neat row of dark purple, plus an intriguing sculpture. There’s an old 19th century art gallery joke from Punch magazine, the gist of which is “Executed in Terracotta”….’The savages’…. 687

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Here’s another part of that lavender job in Mallorca, showing how well the blue works well with the background of sea and sky. Nice view to have, too! 688

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Pretty much all the pictures on the site are from real jobs - rather than cobbled-up studio stuff, but this is a (recent) exception. We wanted to see how laurel leaves worked as a base to the lavender – which is well – but we haven’t got round to showing anyone else. Till now. 689

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Very Doric! This must be in Belgravia, and it’s all the classier for the slim planter and low density of the rosemary, allowing for how ornate the houses are. 690

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One of the many ginormous penthouses over to the west of Kensington High Street, we repeated the staggered pot idea in twos and threes close to the apartment, and put hedges against the outer glass balustrade. 691

692 Fake Landscapes Dormy House lavender in terracotta

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Really nice terracotta pots, the real thing – weighed a ton and probably cost several times more than the planting. This is outside one of those country-house spas, where we got a lot of the ‘how lovely’ followed by ‘oh dear, it’s not real’ from passers-by. People can be fake-ist - but it’s just ignorance, and we have broad shoulders…. 692