After growing up in Japan and relocating to London to study in 2004, botanical stylist Yasuyo Harvey moved to the suburbs before her son, Noah, started elementary school. Her family’s circa-1930s house in Worcester Park came with a neighborhood full of young children, easy access to “the best Korean restaurant in London”—and daily inspiration for her graceful floral compositions.
“The best plants are usually in the alleyways between houses or in someone’s front garden,” she told The Modern House.
After stripping wallpaper from most of the rooms in the house, Yasuyo and husband Phil remodeled the kitchen and turned their attention to the garden. Working side by side for several weekends, they built a Japanese box garden (a tsuboniwa) with raised beds to grow the flowers for her work. “I call myself a botanical stylist,” says Yasuyo. “I’m more interested in creating objects and sculptures for beautiful interiors than conventional floristry.”
Read on to see the botanical art she creates for each room in the house:
Photography courtesy of The Modern House.
When the couple bought the house, “The kitchen was so tiny. Phil is quite big, and he could hardly turn round in it,” says Yasuyo. “Our friend Ryuta Hirayama, who works at Jonathan Tuckey Design, helped us draw up plans for an extension.”
The remodeled kitchen has a new range, custom plywood cabinets, and a white worktop with a sink drainboard.
Yasuyo worked for a florist in London before she began teaching floral classes to Japanese expats, showing them “how to make a bouquet or arrangement. It was great because I could do it in my spare time,” she says. “I did that for two or three years, then started going to Paris Fashion Week with a friend, helping her as a translator.
“One year I met Faye and Erica Toogood when I visited their fashion presentation in Paris,” she told The Modern House. “Faye asked me to decorate her new studio for a photo shoot. … I’ve just finished some work for an apartment that she interior-designed in King’s Cross.”
The resin floor was less expensive than installing concrete, but it “does mark quite easily,” notes Yasuyo.
See more of Yasuyo Harvey’s house and garden at The Modern House.
For more botanical inspiration, see:
- Garden Designer Visit: At Home with Emily Erlam in Norfolk.
- Studio Visit: Electric Daisy Flower Farm.
- Studio Visit: Botanical Artist Anne ten Donkelaar.
N.B.: This post is an update; it was first published December 2017.
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