Jungle treehouse surrounded by paradise

Sonja and her partner Alan moved to their current house and garden in 1985. The garden was a productive vegetable garden complete with it’s own established Bramley apple tree. The majority of the soil had been dug over for crop planting and there was a small area of well kept lawn. Based in the suburb of Hellesdon near Norwich airport, Sonjas awkwardly shaped plot spans an area of 40ft x 143ft x 60ft. The first pivotal moment in the journey of this vegetable gardens transformation was a result of the infamous storm of 1987. The old Bramley apple tree succumbed to the uncharacteristically strong winds and had to be removed.

Following the loss of the apple tree, Sonja put a lot of time and hard work into transforming her garden into a beautiful cottage garden. One day Sonja was happily chatting away to her Vet, when he realised that Sonja was a keen gardener he recommended that she should pay a visit to another nearby garden. Sonja took up her Vets recommendation and made an effort to visit, it blew her mind! The garden belonged to the late Will Giles, a legend of the houseplant and exotic gardening world. From that moment forward Sonja began building her much loved collection of tropical plants. Sonja remembers purchasing her first three Banana plants (Musa basjoo) in 2006, and to this day every single one of her Banana plants originate from that first purchase.

Today, Sonja’s established tropical style garden is far from the productive plot it once was. It is impossible to see the whole garden from one spot, helping make the entire space feel enormous. Obscuring views in a garden is a great design trick, it invites you in and encourages visitors to walk around and explore. Sonja admits the most of the ‘design’ in her garden was done by accident, with only the garden structures being planned.

‘Quirky’ is the word Sonja uses to describe her unique tropical style garden and she enjoys having fun in the garden. A unique and certainly quirky feature is an enormous topiary snail that goes by the name of Brian.

Scraps of wood that remained from an aviary build were used to build a roof for a garden swing seat. This structure evolved into what is now the iconic hut that makes Sonja’s garden so recognizable. Two years following this project, Sonja dreamed of having an elevated platform from which she could view her entire garden. Using entirely reclaimed materials, Sonja and her friend worked together to build what is now the treehouse. This exotic looking treehouse is draped in tropical plants including Rhipsalis, a plant more commonly seen growing indoors.

Sonja generously opens her beautiful garden as part of the NGS open garden scheme. When people visit her garden they are astounded and one group of visitors said that it reminded them of their homes in Indonesia. “Remarks like that make it all worthwhile” Sonja tells me.