Real reveal: Gent’s garden

In honour of Gents’ Week we’re delighted to introduce fashion designer Eudon Choi. Eudon originally trained as a menswear designer in Seoul, moving to London to do an MA in womenswear at the RCA. His graduate collection sold at Dover Street Market and nowadays you can find his clothes in Browns Focus and Harvey Nichols. Last year, he was invited by Anna Wintour to present his S/S 2012 collection at Milan Fashion Week. This year, My Friends House invited him to show us around his cute South London garden…

I live in a basement flat in a Victorian terrace in SE London. Like most basement flats the garden is on two levels. I can access it from either the kitchen or living room, both of which have a set of folding sliding doors which open onto a lower decked area. The garden is quite small – only 13ft x 8 ft but the two levels make it seem so much bigger.

Have you done much work to change the garden?

When I first moved in the garden had been overrun by an enormous ivy plant. It took me and my partner months to dig it all out. There wasn’t any hard landscaping it was just concrete at the lower level and one huge flowerbed at the top level. I love gardening but I don’t always have lots of free time so i wanted something fairly maintenance-free that i can spend time in. Also, as my flat is quite small the summer offers me the opportunity to have larger groups of people over as they can spill out into the garden.

I have gone with a fairly simple design. The bottom level is decked and I rendered the retaining wall and painted it white. I also painted the wall of the house white too to create a block of unified colour. It’s almost like the blank screen against which I then layer the plants. Decking on both levels ties the garden together. I have also chosen a colour scheme of white and purple which gives a calmness.

Was it tricky to deal with two levels – is one sunnier?

The top is very sunny for the last part of the day. It is also overlooked by the flat above so for dining etc I tend to use the lower decked area where I have a nice foldable bistro table and two chairs – it becomes my dining room in the summer. The two levels give the garden a greater sense of space and it definitely feels bigger than it should!

What direction does it face and how do you plant accordingly?

It’s south west facing, but the bottom section only gets direct sunshine first thing in the morning. I spent a fortune on plants for the lower level only to have them die after one season. So now the lower level has about 10 different Hostas all in pots so I can move them around. The top level gets a lot of sun so I have lots of heavily scented lilies such as the Casablanca Lily and Lily Regal Alba. From July onwards the garden is full of their intoxicating scent.

Any tips for shady spots?

Hostas. They are now the key element in my planting scheme. Indeed I have just replanted the main bed behind the zinc planters with about 10 different varieties of Hosta. They give areal architectural element as their leaves are quite rigid and they come in shades of blue through green to acid green.

Do you enjoy the act of gardening?

I do find gardening very therapeutic and as a fashion designer it is nice to be able to potter in the garden and slow things right down. As I have very little free time the garden had to be quite low maintenance. My decking is Thermowood, which is made from softwood that has been baked in a huge oven. It is ‘dead’ fungus so alge can’t grow on it and it just needs a good scrub a few times a year to keep it looking great. The main bed is now planted as a Hosta bed that just looks after itself and everything else is in pots, which are moved around depending on what is in flower at the time. My partner is the real gardener and he will spend most weekends in the summer out there. He is always trying to cram in one more plant and if i had my way the garden would be much less cluttered, but in the summer it looks incredible and smells amazing.

Tell us abut the panels you’ve attached to the wall on the lower level?

The panels bring the eye out from the living room into the lower decked area and in the summer this feels like an extension of the living room. They have lights below them and give of a blue glow in the evening.

Where do you go for your plants and planters?

I love Columbia road for bargains but I normally buy from specialist growers. H.W.Hyde & Son are the best for lilies – they win gold medals year after year at the Chelsea Flower show.

Favourite corner of the garden?

I love sitting on the top level on an big cushion with lavender to one side and a bank of lilies to the other with a big glass of wine. It doesn’t get much better than that!

What’s your gardening gear?

Some shorts and an old t-shirt – when I am in the garden I am definitely off duty from the world of fashion!