Diarmuid Gavin: Irishman and his wife create jungle-themed showstopper at Chelsea Flower Show

The couple are sustainably minded architects, interior and furniture designers and gardeners who operate from a church bell tower in Westminster and live in a flat in Kings Cross.

Taking inspiration from their travels around the world, Mike’s garden at his Navan, Co Meath, childhood home and the planting on Jewlsy’s parents’ ancestral plot in the backwaters of Kerala, India, their favourite place to be within nature is in jungles, so they decided to recreate this.

And considering the limitations of the space, they’ve done so brilliantly.

They’ve used the space around the balcony structure to allow the landscape to spread freely, allowing, for example, a Tetrapanax and tree fern fronds to overhang — similar to how Mangrove trees hover over the sea.

The plants act as a solar screen in the summer months, helping to create a cooler interior. In winter, a lot of the foliage is gone, which brings in much more light during the darker months.

So what thrives on their Kings Cross linear landscape? The planting choices have been selected to work with all seasons. Remarkably, there are over 60 different species, with some colour in all seasons.

This week, they’ve brought their Junglette idea to the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, where King Charles was introduced to this green city initiative.

Balconies can be challenging spaces in which to plant but Mike and Jewlsy have developed a complete ecosystem with theirs where they have pushed the possibilities of gardening on the side of a city building and used it as an aid to comfortable living.

Their attention to detail is remarkable. They designed and built the garden themselves, everything from the back wall, to decking, to all the furniture, to a bespoke bird feeder. The back wall is made out of 1,492 pieces of recycled paper.

Sustainability has been core to the design in terms of using both recycled materials but also thinking beyond Chelsea. The deck will be converted into a dining table and the back wall into cabinetry.

The garden is awash with interesting plants with dramatic foliage and leaves and it is really interesting watching the shadow they cast against the folded paper wall as it has created a very exciting back drop.

The collection of plants include Dicksonia antarctica with frond diameters of three metres — the largest tree ferns at Chelsea this year — and foliage stars such as Brassaiopsis mitis and Liriodendron chinense.

Mike says that they have been trying to push the boundaries on our planting as London is a microclimate caused by the heat island effect of the city.

They grow a Cyathea cooperi all year round on their balcony and they even have a few plants which wouldn’t survive outside of London.

Plant of the week

Papaver orientale

The oriental poppies are unfolding this week for their brief but dramatic flowering period. The flamboyant petals emerge when the tightly packed, large, hairy buds start to split open at the seams. The silky, crumpled petals splay out to offer easy access to pollinators seeking nectar at their centre. Some beautiful varieties include ‘Patty’s Plum’, a popular dark plummy pink as well as the classic scarlet ‘Beauty of Livermere’, with its ebony black centre. They can look a bit untidy when they finish flowering so cut back or leave some for seed collection later in the summer.

Reader Q&A

I have a balcony which is quite small and shady. I’d love to grow some veg but is there anything that will work in this situation? Paul

Most veg will prefer an open, sunny position but there are some that will manage with lower light levels. Leafy veg such as spinach, leafy salads and lettuce are all good options. Raised beds can catch more light. Some smaller root veg such as radish and beetroot should be OK. Fruiting crop won’t do so well as they need as much sunshine as possible to ripen and mature.

Submit your gardening questions to Diarmuid via his Instagram @diarmuidgavin using the hashtag #weekendgarden