Water gardens

Mount Venus Nursery
Infinity

Designer: Oliver and Liat Schumann
Sponsors: Roadstone (Ireland), Kilkenny Limestone (Ireland), Geoline (Ireland), Gärtnerei Simon (Germany)
Contractor: Mount Venus Nursery

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Infinity is inspired by the canals and well-preserved hollow pathways of natural hedgerows in the Irish and English countryside. The designers Oliver and Liat Schurmann wanted to create the feeling of endless, dense woodland and indulge their fascination for canals and their deceptive horizons.

The aerial view of the garden reminds visitors of a Tibetan Mandela with its concentric circles and paths with no end. Infinity is the largest free standing garden at this year’s show - the main pathway is designed as an endless jogging path (60m/200ft), the canal as an endless swimming pool (45m/150ft long).

A bridge of stepping stones on a nearly invisible steel frame connects the path to the patio, the rectangular, sharply cut Kilkenny limestone slabs appear to be floating in the air. Paths are made of a special honeycomb grid filled with pebbles that can absorb water and let it drain into the surrounding ground. Although nearly 50 percent of the garden is paved with special pebble paths, the planting is in the foreground. Water overflows from a pool as a curtain of droplets into the central sunken patio where it is caught in a narrow reed bed filtration channel and then circulated back into the swimming pool. The filtration system demonstrates how simple, effective, cheap and attractive waste-water purification can be, or how you can maintain a swimming pool without using chemicals. The inspiration for the curtain of drops came from the bogs in Ireland where you find sharply cut edges in the peat landscape with saturated bog cotton and sphagnum overhanging and creating the effect of drops falling.

Planting includes large, mature specimen deciduous trees, shrubs and bamboo underplanted with woodland perennials, ferns and grasses with the emphasis on contrasting foliage. The reed bed canal is densely planted with sedges, iris and forget-me-nots.

To help get a sense of scale, last winter on a snowy Sunday morning, Oliver Schurmann went to the local football pitch and dug the garden life-size out of the snow to see if he had got his dimensions right or not. Oliver feels that the villagers are now confirmed in the presumption that the designers are 'a bit crazy'. The following morning all evidence had melted away.