Kensington Pied-à-terre

A small, deliberate group of statement trees for a Kensington penthouse, specified with Studio Ashby.

Four trees rather than forty plants

The temptation in a finished interior of this quality is to add plants everywhere, and it is almost always wrong. A room that has been designed to the last detail does not need decorating again — it needs one or two things with enough presence to hold a corner, and nothing else competing with them.

So this is a handful of trees, each chosen for a specific position, in a flat where the alternative was a dozen smaller pieces that would have read as clutter within a month.

Two trees, two jobs

The sitting room takes an Amstel King with its natural head left on. Most Amstel Kings are trimmed into a tidy ball, which is easier to grow and much less interesting to live with. Left natural, the head is loose and asymmetric and lifts the room rather than filling it.

The dining room takes a Ficus Alii — a genuinely delicate tree, narrow-leaved and architectural, that reads almost as a drawing against a wall. It works where a heavier canopy would have crowded the table.

Credits

Design: Studio Ashby
Planting: Plant Drop

Plant consultant: Dom Butler