It was an honour to be asked to design the landscaping and planting for an extension to the military cemetery at Yeovilton. I'm sure the residents of the village get fed up with plane spotting, but, with the cemetery at the end of the runway, I got quite excited, especially when I watched the Red Arrows practising for the Yeovilton Air Show!

The cemetery had some existing features - some paving with Hamstone benches, an elevated cross and a sundial - which needed to be incorporated into the design. Practically, I needed to allow for wheelchair access around the garden and also for the regimented rows of Portland stone gravestones which will, over time, fill the empty space.

I was very aware of the men and women whose resting place this will be, and so I felt it was important that the design should be contemporary - representative of the age in which these young people gave their lives. Clipped yew (eventually to be statuesque columns and simple blocks) give structure to a garden of grasses and perennials, the path weaving between bands of planting, with lavender and box hedging linking the existing elements of the garden.