the Weed Garden, Begbroke Science Park

I was commissioned by Company, Place to design the planting of the Weed garden, alongside Turner prize winning architecture practice Assemble at Begbroke Science Park, University of Oxford.

The site was previously used to test herbicides and pesticides and the brief was to create a public garden space. My planting design is based on the definition of weed which is simply ‘a plant in the wrong place’. The throughline for the planting scheme was taken from the initial site visit, where I catalogued the weeds and wildflowers that were already thriving on this forgotten site.

The planting design is at some points entirely naturalistic, featuring common ‘weeds’ such as hawksbit, wild grasses and teasel. And at other moments, the design moves one species or cultivar away and arranges the plants more formally to create something entirely different. The planting is framed by a mature beech hedge and a beautiful mortared wall to create a walled garden feeling, reframing how we look at these ‘weeds’.

The aim of the space is for visitors to question the rather moveable definition of what a weed is to rethink our relation to them. The garden is under construction and will soon be open to the public, after a series of community workshops.

You can read an article about the garden in Positive News here