Henry Chapple-Cox
Henry has been designing gardens with us for 10 years and leads and manages his own projects and clients. He holds a Bachelor of Design and a Diploma of Horticulture. He manages the design studio at Secret Gardens, assessing deliverables and priorities to allocate resources and to provide essential mentoring to new and junior staff members. He has many skills and hobbies, piano, unicycle rider, actor and a leader in maintaining our culture.
Articles by Henry Chapple-Cox
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past couple of years, it is how interconnected our world is. Whether it’s something as obvious as how we relate to family members, the networks we build in our communities or how a microscopic virus can hop between humans with relative ease, nothing exists in isolation.
Your front facade might be about putting your best foot forward, but in many parts of Sydney, the rear lane is where it’s at. Once the sole domain of the night cart man and garbage trucks, Creative Director of Secret Gardens Matt Cantwell says the back lane is packed with potential. This is especially true in areas where land is at a premium.
Native wildlife can add a delightful dimension to your garden, providing a sense of life and movement, and a feeling of connection with nature. Closing your eyes and listening to the busy humming of bees or the convivial chatter of birds is a guaranteed way to slough off the stresses of a working week and feel at peace. Including a few of these tricks into your garden sends a clear invitation to the local fauna.
Before you can dig for foundations or plant a single tree, you need to know what kind of soil you’re dealing with. A loamy, basalt-based soil is the gold standard of soils, not too fine, not too coarse, and chock full of nutrients. But in greater Sydney, we’re far more likely to be dealing with either very sandy or clay-dense soil. So what does that mean? And is the news all bad?
We’re all for living and entertaining outdoors, but as our gardens become semi-public spaces towards which guests gravitate, it’s nice to carve out a corner that’s just for you, a secret nook in which to unwind on one’s own. Any garden, from a grand acreage to a modest courtyard, can be designed with such a spot; the key is to create a sense of intimacy and sprinkle a little bit of gardening magic.
The ebb and flow of trends in the world of landscaping might not be as furiously fast-moving as that of fashion or even interiors, but we certainly do see plants come in and out of vogue, both outside and inside the home – witness the Instagram obsession with the fiddle leaf fig.
We love indoor plants for so many reasons – they help us connect with nature, purify the air and blur the boundaries between inside and out – but plenty of people are scared to bring potted greenery into their home. If you’re a self-described ‘black thumb’, read on for our pick of indoor plants and top tips to keep them alive and thriving.
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