Lush tropical foliage climbs towards the open sky and all you can see is a wall of green. The only sound is of water trickling down into a dark pool.
It could be a scene from the Amazonian rainforest but it is actually Clive Johnson-Cooper’s minuscule Scottish back garden.
The jungle-style area of only nine square metres has been chosen by judges as the winner of the Gardens of the Year competition run by Gardeners’ World magazine, beating hundreds of other entrants from around the UK.
Johnson-Cooper feels it is the reward for almost two decades of hard work on constructing his own slice of paradise.
“It’s such a small space I didn’t think it could compete with bigger ones,” he said. “But I think the judges liked the little bit of skill it took to pull it all together.”
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The garden is at the back of his small mews house in Circus Lane, Edinburgh, a street often called one of the prettiest in the country.
In 2005, when Johnson-Cooper moved in, he found a ramshackle lean-to, complete with corrugated plastic roof, in the rear courtyard area, which the previous owners had used to extend the living space.
After taking it down he set to work on transformation, with a cottage garden at first, to create his own oasis in the bustling district of Stockbridge. Three years ago he switched to a jungle garden.
Now tall tree ferns stand guard at either side of a lion’s head fountain while a variety of plants of different sizes, textures and shapes cover the walls. Climbers such as clematis also enliven the area with colour.
Doors lead out directly from Johnson-Cooper’s ground floor into the garden, while he can also enjoy the view from the first-floor balcony.
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“When I look out from the bedroom it feels a bit like a painting because it’s a small space enclosed by all the plants,” said Johnson-Cooper, 53, who has been gardening for most of his life and is a volunteer with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh herbaceous team.
“At night, I can put the lights on outside and all you can see is greenery and the fountain, it’s very relaxing. If I’m upstairs in my living room I’ll pop into the kitchen to peer over the balcony into the garden every hour or so, just to enjoy looking down on it.”
The switch from cottage garden to jungle came as a result of a brainwave. “I thought that actually you can sometimes get a nicer garden using different types of foliage,” he said. “It probably sounds crazy putting a jungle garden in Scotland with the weather against you, but actually I prefer it.”
Among the judges was the celebrity gardener Alan Titchmarsh, who said Johnson-Cooper, an IT manager, had “really thought about the scale of the garden and also the texture created by the foliage. He’s brought the garden together very successfully.”
Sarah Mead, a leading organic gardener and fellow judge, agreed. “Horticulturally, every single plant is in rude health,” she said. “The plants are really stunning and obviously very well looked after.”
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As much as Johnson-Cooper loves his private space, he is half-minded to let other garden enthusiasts in to see it, perhaps as part of the Scotland’s Gardens charity open-day scheme.
“The problem is that people would have to go through my bedroom,” he said. “And it’s such a small space the entries would have to be very restricted.”
