Cutting Season: How to Bring the Garden Inside, One Stem at a Time
The Problem with Imported Flowers Let us begin with an uncomfortable truth: most flowers in Hong Kong homes have travelled further than their owners. The roses on your dining table…
Designers
Piet Oudolf in Asia: Can the New Perennial Movement Survive a Subtropical Summer?
The Dutch plantsman who transformed garden design insists that a plant is only worth growing if it looks good when it is dead. Can his philosophy survive Hong Kong's six-month summer?
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From the Journal
A Rooftop Garden in Central: One Couple’s 400-Square-Foot Urban Oasis
On the eighteenth floor of a 1970s Central tower block, an architect and a landscape designer transformed a bare concrete balcony into one of Hong Kong's most carefully considered small gardens.
Hardscaping First: Why Paths and Walls Come Before Plants
The most common mistake in garden design is buying plants before building structure. Russell Page called the paths, walls, and levels the 'bones' of a garden — and the bones must come first.
Pruning Without Fear: A Season-by-Season Guide to Cutting Back
Every gardener has frozen in front of a plant with secateurs in hand. Here is why pruning is not violence but information — and how to do it right in every season.
The Ritual of the Morning Garden: Five Minutes That Change Everything
There is a particular hour, just after sunrise, when the garden is not yet a garden. For fifteen years, the author has kept one ritual: five minutes among the plants before the world intrudes.
The Lost Gardens of Lugard Road: Hong Kong’s Colonial Planting Heritage
Hidden in plain sight along Victoria Peak's most famous walking path are the remnants of a century of horticultural ambition — camellias, gardenias, and banyans that have outlived the grand houses they were planted to adorn.
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About the Magazine
A journal of garden design and the art of living with nature
Attic Lifestyle is an editorial magazine for people who believe gardens are design projects and plants are living sculpture. We write about garden designers and their work, plants that earn their place, climate-smart gardening, and the pleasure of bringing nature indoors. Every story is grounded in real gardens, real people, and real horticultural knowledge.
— The Editors
Questions
Frequently Asked About Garden Design
What garden style works best in Hong Kong's climate?
Hong Kong's subtropical climate — hot, humid summers and mild winters — favours gardens built around tropical and subtropical species. Naturalistic perennial plantings adapted from the New Perennial Movement, using grasses like Miscanthus and flowering plants like Plumbago and Salvia leucantha, thrive here. The key is choosing plants that can handle the humidity without succumbing to fungal disease. Native gingers, ferns, and structural species like frangipani and bougainvillea form reliable backbones. For more, see our articles on garden design and garden profiles.
How do I start a garden if I only have a balcony?
Start with weight. On a high-rise balcony, lightweight plastic pots blow over and dry out — invest in heavy terracotta or stone containers. Choose plants that do at least two things: a frangipani provides shade, fragrance, and winter structure. Add an automated drip-irrigation system (the single best investment for any balcony garden in the subtropics). Create a windbreak with bamboo or dense shrubs along the exposed edge. Our article A Rooftop Garden in Central walks through a complete 400-square-foot balcony transformation.
When is the best time to prune in Hong Kong?
Winter (December–February) is for structural pruning — deciduous trees and shrubs are dormant and their architecture is visible. Summer (June–August) should be minimal: only deadhead spent flowers and remove diseased growth. Autumn (September–November) is the second major window — give summer-flowering shrubs like hibiscus and bougainvillea a hard cutback as the heat breaks. Spring-flowering shrubs (camellia, azalea) should be pruned immediately after blooming, never in winter. Our season-by-season pruning guide covers every detail.
What are the best low-maintenance plants for a Hong Kong garden?
For structure: frangipani, bougainvillea, and Miscanthus sinensis (Chinese silver grass). For flowers: Plumbago auriculata (flowers almost continuously), Ruellia simplex, and Lantana camara. For shade: native ferns, Aspidistra elatior (cast-iron plant), and Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant — much more architectural outdoors). These species need minimal intervention once established — occasional pruning, no special feeding, and they will outlast almost anything else you plant. Browse our Plants section for detailed profiles.
How can I make a small garden feel larger?
Three techniques. First: create a change of level — even a single step between two areas tricks the eye into reading them as distinct spaces. Second: use a curving path rather than a straight one; a path that disappears around a corner promises more garden beyond. Third: plant vertically — a climbing star jasmine on a wall covers three square metres in two years while consuming zero floor area. Our article Hardscaping First explains why paths, walls, and levels come before plants.