Rill Garden

Perthshire

Constructed on an unused and slowly deteriorating tennis court, the water garden’s main feature is a spring of water that emerges from the top curved steps above the garden and cascades down the stone into a narrow rill.  

Formed with granite sett edges, the rill meanders through the garden in an ‘S’ shape that is mirrored by a Caithness slate path. The path and the rill combine to form a figure of eight when viewed from above and the ‘8’ ends in a ball formed from circular plates of slate. The water running down the rough texture of the slate ball makes the most relaxing sound before it is pumped below the garden’s surface back up to the circular steps to start its course again.  

Six pencil-shaped fastigiate yews form a circle in the centre of the garden and the other planting includes rudbeckias, sedums, artemesia, bergenias and phormiums.  

Stones inscribed with a poem were inset into the wall that we constructed to one side of the garden to form a sheltered seating area.