St. Pancras Hotel Roof Terrace

As I was sorting through the images for this post, I was amazed at the breadth of plants that Ylva Blid-Mackenzie has used in her planting design for the roof terrace of St. Pancras Hotel. This shouldn’t surprise me as Ylva runs the specialist Madrona Nursery in Kent with her husband, alongside working as a landscape and garden designer.

I feel like I have acquired a whole new palette of plants and some clever solutions for planting in tricky situations. Above is a Anaphalis triplinervis ‘Pearl Everlasting’, a rare example of a silver leafed plant that is happy to grow in sun or shade and one which will tolerate clay soil too. Lizzie, who I regularly garden with, says it’s an old cottage garden plant that has gone out of fashion, and has tried in the past to find Anaphalis from nurseries, without much luck. Must say, it looks wonderful (and very contemporary) in this silver themed bed.

Ylva was approached by designer Catherine Thomas of Seamless Industries, to create planting which would work in sympathy with her unique sculptural planters (which look like metal, but are in fact fibreglass with a metal coating). With planting performing a more monochrome role, Ylva had to think about her plant choices in a different way from her usual designs and has really enjoyed the challenge.

An Eleagnus ‘Quicksilver’(centre), with its own quirky shape, seems perfectly suited to this more sculptural approach to planting, and even the mildew on the Dahlias is in keeping with the metallic colours of its surrounds.

Flowers become secondary, and indeed too much of a distraction from the sculpture as a whole, so emphasis is placed on form, texture and leaf color which is keeping with each individual planter. Rubus thibetanus ‘Silver Fern’ (above) is deciduous, but its white stems will still provide interest throughout the winter months and will cast interesting shadows, along with other taller shrubs, when the planters are lit up at night.

The tiny slivers of space at the edge of the planters provide a great opportunity to plant the small, but perfectly formed, Leptinella squalida ‘Platt’s Black’ ,

and a couple of other plants that caught my eye were Saxifraga fortunei ‘Rubrifolia’ (above), providing succulent color coordination,

and Leucothoe ‘Girard’s Rainbow’, an evergreen shrub with elegant arching stems. Plants have been in situ for nearly 3 months now and still looking fresh and healthy due to the diligent care of Steve the gardener who calls by on a regular basis.

Ylva’s planting seems all the more praiseworthy, as plants have been carefully selected to thrive in the demanding conditions of a roof top in central London as well as combining with the playful, sculptural planters (in sun and in shade) to provide a lively and energetic contrast to the harsh backdrop of The British Library.

The Roof Terrace at St.Pancras Hotel isn’t open to the public at present, but will let you should this space become accessible as part of an open access weekend. On the other hand, Madrona Nursery is open until November 1st, from Saturdays ’til Tuesdays, 10am-5pm.