Just over a decade ago, Tom and Sue Stuart-Smith wrote a book, The Barn Garden, about the creation of their garden on the Serge Hill estate in Hertfordshire. It was subtitled Making a Place and described how the land, which was bought by Tom’s grandfather in 1927, has gently evolved as the Stuart-Smith family’s involvement has grown and changed. Today a new chapter is being sketched out on this same wedge of land, shaped by a recent cross-fertilisation of the couple’s individual areas of professional interest. Tom, as regular readers of Gardens Illustrated will know, is an internationally renowned landscape designer. Sue is a psychiatrist, psychotherapist and passionate advocate of the power of horticultural therapy, as she eloquently explained in her best-selling 2020 book The Well Gardened Mind.

The couple have gardened companionably together since their marriage in 1986, but their work spheres remained largely separate until Sue visited the Sunnyside Rural Trust. This Hertfordshire charity provides nursery-based horticultural training for young people with learning disabilities, and Sue was so impressed by what she saw that in 2015 she invited them to help in her vegetable garden. “It worked very well and they started coming every month,” says Sue. “Then I persuaded Tom to visit their base in Hemel Hempstead, and he was so struck by the value of their work that he suggested they set up a perennial plant nursery with expert help from Toby Marchant, of Orchard Dene nursery. Within six months Sunnyside was producing all the herbaceous plants for the garden Tom designed at RHS Hampton Court in 2021.”

This first-hand experience of horticultural therapy in practice had a huge impact on Tom, and the couple began discussing what more they could do to meld their complementary interests and areas of expertise. “We wanted to share what we have here in a way that would have the maximum benefit for as many people as possible,” says Tom. “Our three children are all adults, we are effectively empty nesters, so it felt like the right time to do something. We just didn’t know quite what shape it would take.”

One of those adult children, Ben, an architect, contributed a significant piece to the puzzle when he suggested Tom give up his London office and build a studio at home. Having total control over the contents and configuration of his workspace for the first time allowed Tom to consider what he felt were the important components of a successful workplace. He wanted his 18-strong team to sit down and eat together, so he included a fully stocked kitchen where everyone now takes it in turn to cook a communal lunch. He also wanted the young designers to have first-hand experience of the plants they work with. “There is an element of enlightened self-interest in this. I want to work with good people, avoid rigid hierarchical structures, and create an environment where they can maximise their talents. Few of them have gardens of their own, so they don’t have the opportunities I’ve had to observe how plants grow and develop. That was how we came up with the idea of a plant library.”

The Plant Library became the first tangible element of Tom and Sue’s broader altruistic aspirations, which were corralled under the heading The Serge Hill Project for Gardening, Creativity and Health, and in 2020 they were granted planning permission to develop a community garden on the family’s land.

“We started with the idea of creating a reference resource that would be of use to our own studio team, but that quickly expanded to include horticulture students, garden designers and local schools,” says Tom.

“We also wanted an events space for a variety of groups that could be used as a meeting place where people could come together and support each other,” says Sue. “I visit so many wonderful therapeutic projects where the organisers are pretty isolated and would really benefit from getting together to share ideas.”

Naturally, the couple turned to their home-grown architect to design a suitably multi-functional building. Ben, co-founder of architecture social enterprise Okra, came up with a beautifully understated carbon-sink timber structure, insulated and finished in cast hempcrete and clad in shingles cleaved by hand from oaks cleared near the site. “Fortunately we ordered all the construction materials just before the pandemic hit, or we might never have started at all, but events definitely slowed us down,” says Sue.

Consequently the building is only just nearing completion, but the Plant Library garden – expertly cared for by head gardener Millie Souter – is already looking glorious. “I bought all the plants just before Covid hit,” says Tom, “so we pushed ahead with planting more than 1,200 different varieties chosen to suit the different sets of conditions, from dry sun to quite damp shade. These have been arranged in a vast and carefully catalogued grid of 1m squares, designed to showcase each specimen individually.”

Viewed as whole, Tom and Sue’s big idea is both very simple in its altruistic aspirations and enormously complicated to sum up. “What is so moving is how it works on every level. This has brought our different worlds together, and the fact is we don’t fully know what it is going to be. We want it to grow organically, based on how people respond and interact with it,” says Sue. “We are still finalising the finances and organisation, and it has been challenging at times, but I’m not stressed by it any more,” says Tom. “It may take a while to achieve its full potential, but it is important that we do it right.”

Find out more about The Serge Hill Project at tomstuartsmith.co.uk and suestuartsmith.com.

Gardens Illustrated is hosting an exclusive reader day at Serge Hill later this year. Be among the first to find out more about this exciting event by signing up to our Events Newsletter here

In 2015 when Derek was 87, we featured him and his garden in Gardens Illustrated. After the news of his death last week, we are sharing the feature again, to celebrate a remarkable, resourceful man who had a beautiful farmhouse garden.

Fergus Garrett of Great Dixter said: ‘Deryck was greatly loved and a source of inspiration for the team at Great Dixter.’

I followed my instructions to reach Deryck Body’s garden on the edge of Romney Marsh: drive slowly down the lane and look out for multi-coloured dahlias singing loudly over a well-trimmed hedge. And there was Deryck, a retired farmer, standing tall despite his advanced years, surrounded by shoulder-high flowers: “the best ever this year, from the tulips onwards”.

It’s this enthusiasm that keeps most gardeners carrying on gardening but few to such great effect as Deryck. And it isn’t just flowers that keep him busy, he grows his own vegetables and herbs, looks after a large orchard and nuttery with a soft fruit cage, runs a few sheep – four calm ewes – to keep the grass down, a few hens for eggs, and on the other side of the orchard, there’s a large asparagus bed.

In the farming world, the garden was traditionally woman’s work. His mother was a plantswoman, and Deryck’s wife Betty was in sole charge of the flowers and veg beds. Sadly, and suddenly, Betty died in 2001, and so Deryck took over her garden, finding solace among her plants. He has taught himself the names of the flowers, and although he has always loved making things grow, he prefers the more practical things of life. But the flowerbeds are seen from the road, so he felt obliged to keep them looking lively.

Deryck was brought up in this farmhouse. He left to build his own house down the road and moved in with his new wife, but came back 25 years later when his older son got married, so he has known this spot all his life. Set back from the road, the front garden is pretty much the same width as the house, with beds to either side of the front path, and a tradesmen’s entrance round to the back door, screened by a low clipped hedge. The rest is a kitchen garden fenced with chestnut paling to keep out the woolly mowers; a large collection of fruit and nut trees; and tucked behind, an exquisite little thatched cottage built by Deryck for his grandchildren, using only tools that would have been in use in the 18th century, with it’s own tiny cottage garden.

The soil is ancient and alluvial. Romney Marsh has been cultivated since the 13th century for the Archbishops of Canterbury, and this area was drained in 1804 to create the Royal Military Canal. The acre plot would have sustained a farmer’s family. After Deryck passed his farm on to his sons, he started thatching local barns and cottages, using his own strain of long straw wheat. He made his own ladders – some 40 rungs tall – cut cleft chestnut fences, hurdles and gates, and became famous in the neighbourhood for his workmanship. In his late seventies, he visited Great Dixter (once farmed by one of his relations) to cap the woodshed’s roof, and met Christopher Lloyd. They famously disagreed about cutting back the fig tree that was in the way, and Lloyd stamped off grumbling: “I’m not going to be told what to do by that young whippersnapper.” A happy compromise was reached.

He has continued his relationship with Great Dixter. Head gardener Fergus Garrett says that everything about Deryck comes from a bygone age: a lovely world we’d all like to live in. “He massively influenced our decision to turn the Great Barn into a classroom for country skills,” says Fergus. “And he helped us set up samples and examples of how woods and greenwoods can be turned into necessary everyday objects of great beauty. I have immense respect for everything Deryck makes: from the way his gates work to his rook pie; and for his understanding of the land he works, of his animals, of wood, everything he turns his hand to. It’s a privilege to visit the farmhouse, and be briefly part of his world, to be informed by his knowledge and touched by his friendship.”

The list of what Deryck is both willing and able to turn his hand to goes on and on and even stretches to milling his own flour from the farm’s strain of long straw wheat, which we were lucky enough to sample on our visit. Our tea of home-baked rolls with greengage jam – homemade, of course – a boiled fruitcake, made with sultanas soaked in cider from the farm, and walnut slices was delicious. Waiting for Deryck on the sideboard was a pie for supper made with home-raised pork and orchard apples cooked in homemade cider.

Anything he needs, Deryck makes himself using bits he has. He believes that progress generally has landed us in a pretty poor predicament but happily lives to work – unlike so many of us who work to live. He gets up with the birds – “How can you not?” he asks – and spends his days outside or, when the weather is bad, in his workshop. One of the last of a generation, Deryck Body leads a life that hasn’t changed, in an industry he barely recognises, but he has the satisfaction of having passed his time more profoundly productively than most, in one of the loveliest of gardens.

Deryck’s mostly productive vegetable plot, where he grows sprouts, kale, beans and onions for the kitchen table, also has room for colour provided by yet more dahlias

Deryck still spends much of his day in his workshop, making what he needs with green woodworking techniques that have been used for centuries.

This tiny, half-timbered, thatched cottage, built by Deryck for his grandchildren, has an air of fairy-tale magic thanks in no small part to its scaled-down colourful cottage garden.

One of Deryck’s chestnut gates creates a dividing line between his vegetable plot and a flower garden filled with various dahlias, including the burnt-orange ‘David Howard’ and pale-yellow ‘Inca Spectrum’.

Both the traditional ladder and the chestnut fencing it leans against were made by Deryck. The fence surrounds of a highly productive cider apple orchard.

Deryck’s lore

• Deryck keep beds weed free with a sharp swan-necked hoe, so he doesn’t have to weed on hands and knees.

• He deadheads daily to encourage flowering.

• He keeps his hedges (and topiary) in shape with a sickle or brush hook that’s “as sharp as anything”, trimming little and often so new growth never gets woody.

• He spins his sheep’s wool on a homemade wheel. I was shown bags of the softest wool, some dyed with young forsythia leaves for a yellow hue.

• Clothes are line-dried in the garden and hung with pegs handmade of split grey willow cut below a node. The wood is as smooth as silk and won’t snag clothes.

• Deryck makes everything himself. When he and Betty moved into the farmhouse, they couldn’t find their nutcracker. Deryck made one from a gutter bracket, which he still uses.

• Dahlias are left in the soil with their stalks as markers and mulched deep to protect their tubers from frost – in colder areas they should be lifted and stored.

• Sheep keep grass down in this garden. Geese, says Deryck, are also good for this, but they are messier, noisier, and often more aggressive.

• Deryck makes full use of local fruits and nuts; the farm still makes cider from the orchard apples and Deryck used to make cherry wine from tiny bird cherries in local orchards.

When Helen Thomas moved to Hill Farm, the garden was little more than grass, and mature trees and hedges. Helen came up with a plan that would provide space for her children to play in, while preserving the sloping garden’s natural contours. 

While many designers would have been tempted to create terraces, Helen enhanced the steep slope by using heathers and shrubs to accentuate and mimic the movement of the land. Sweeping areas of planting separate sections of the garden, with pathways of grass and wood chippings running like ribbons between the levels.

As the soil is acid loam, many neighbouring gardens are full of rhododendrons and camellias, but Helen didn’t want to follow the same pattern. “I wanted to show that you could plant in a different, lighter and more modern way, using grasses as well as the more traditional heathers,” she says. 

Read our advice on growing winter-flowering heathers.

Initially, Helen’s choice of traditional heathers was practical as much as aesthetic. “I had a young family and heathers were dog- and child-proof.” She started with a mix of the magnificent mauve Erica x darleyensis ‘J.W. Porter’, and the white Erica carnea f. alba ‘Springwood White’, planted as a matrix with the Irish heath, Daboecia cantabrica. Although unable to compete with the ericas, this Irish heath still stubbornly pops up every so often throughout the border, providing sustenance for pollinators in summer.

In winter, the ericas, including Erica carnea f. alba ‘Springwood White’ and Erica x darleyensis ‘J. W Porter’ create seamless rivers of colour. “I had to do some weeding until it all knitted together but since then it has really looked after itself.” 

The main terrace has been cut out of the slope, with walls constructed of local flint and softened by the carpet of heathers. Ornamental grasses used in the garden include Calamagrostis brachytricha, along with the upright Miscanthus sinensis ‘Malepartus’, and the shorter and more lax Miscanthus sinensis ‘Abundance’, which arches over the edges of the paths. Helen has dotted the lighter Molinia caerulea ‘Poul Petersen’ around to create a shimmer effect.

Beneath a mature pine, the zingy green hellebore, Helleborus argutifolius, has spread and interspersed with ferns and snowdrops, Galanthus nivalis. These are repeated on the other side of the lawn, beneath the structural and striking winter skeletons of Acer griseum and Betula utilis subsp. jaquemontii.  

In 2004, Keith Wiley, former head gardener at The Garden House on the edge of Dartmoor, moved a very short distance to create an ambitious new garden. The flat, four-acre site, once a cider orchard, is now home to the exciting, magnificent Wildside. Looking across the undulating landscape now teeming with plants, it’s hard to believe this was a nondescript field – three acres with a temperate climate and high rainfall – not so long ago.

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Over the past 15 years, Keith has hewn a garden out of the land, shifting thousands of tonnes of soil and shillet (originally 20cm of loam over free-draining shillet) to make suitable habitats for a very diverse range of plants. He dug down to create lush pools, and built up banks to make free-draining mounds for bulbs and trees.

Much of the planting is influenced by natural landscapes and communities observed all over the world, though they are not direct copies. “I try to capture the essence,” says Keith. “I take a piece of natural landscape that I like and modify it to create a piece of garden, whereas most people try to make the garden look more natural.” The garden is still growing. Over the brow of another hill, there is a new area waiting to be planted. Keith’s excitement at the planned South African-style garden is infectious. He has it all laid out in his mind’s eye and doubtless it will be every bit as extraordinary as the rest of the garden. Discover more about the garden below.

The strong shapes of Euphorbia ‘Blue Haze’ and Anthemis tinctoria ‘EC Buxton’ contrast with floating Stipa tenuissima. A carefully pruned Fitzroya cupressoides in the background adds height and drama.

The Lower Water Garden has a more luxuriant feel, where Hemerocallis ‘Ariadne’ and Campanula lactiflora combine on the banks beside pools brimming with thick stands of Pontederia cordata.

How to attract wildlife in the garden

The free-draining shillet banks make excellent habitats for Erigeron karvinskianus and Linaria triornithophora. Welsh and Californian poppies mingle with ox-eye daisies and Dierama Wildside hybrids.

Old cider apple trees form a backdrop to pink and white forms of Lychnis coronaria, punchy, lemon-yellow Oenothera stricta ‘Sulphurea’ and wandering Geranium sanguineum and Papaver cambricum.

This alpine meadow is awash with colour. Orange and yellow helianthemums and campanulas dominate the foreground, while Geranium pratense, G. sanguineum and pulsatillas form the bulk of the planting, with Eschscholzia californica and Oenothera stricta self-seeding.

The floriferous, single, red Rosa ‘Dortmund’ climbs through the pergola. Self-seeding dieramas thrive among pink Diascia fetcaniensis, frothy Stipa tenuissima and tall lily stems and buds.

Planting is more formal in the Courtyard Garden, with stands of Potentilla recta ‘Warrenii’, Hebe ochracea ‘James Stirling’ and Eryngium x zabellii among cheerful ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare).

Looking south towards the house, Eragrostis curvula creates a misty effect. The golden plumes of Stipa gigantea catch the light in a planting that has both a Mediterranean and South African feel to it.

Useful information

Address Green Lane, Buckland Monachorum, Devon PL20 7LP. Tel 01822 855755, Website wileyatwildside.com Open Occasionally in spring and summer to correspond with the main peak flowering seasons; see website for details.

Most romantic gardens to visit

Endsleigh

Humphry Repton, the great 18th-century landscaper, worked at Endsleigh and in the valley to the west of the house you catch the essence of his genius. Water charges under paths, tips down rock faces and meanders obediently along leats. ‘Of all picturesque subjects there is none so interesting as Water in rapid motion,’ he wrote. Endsleigh has a quality that is increasingly difficult to find in a garden: romance and a strong spirit of place.

Hotel Endsleigh
Milton Abbot, Tavistock, Devon PL19 0PQ

Dundonnell

When you cross the stone bridge over the river to Dundonnell in Scotland, you arrive in a different world. First are the trees – huge limes, beech and sweet chestnuts, as well as sycamore and ash. Then the house, superbly strong, white-harled, standing in a meadow of long grass. Then the walled garden, three acres of inspired beauty arranged around a monumental yew, thought to be at least 2,000 years old. Thrilling. Astonishing.
Open for charity (Scotlands Gardens)

Dundonnell House
Dundonnell, Little Loch Broom, Wester Ross IV23 2QW

Bolfracks

Bolfracks tells you immediately that it is a much-loved garden, beautifully looked after and impervious, quite rightly, to fashion. It has a quiet peace and self confidence, the planting still singing of the 1950s: cherries, acers, berberis, good species rhododendrons. The twig house makes a romantic hideaway.

Bolfracks
Aberfeldy, Perthshire PH15 2EX

Gresgarth

“I’m getting more Italian as I get older,” says designer Arabella Lennox-Boyd about her own garden at Gresgarth where a geometric arrangement of steps and terraces leads down to meet the lake on the southwest front of the house. The design may be formal but the planting is rich, lush and passionate.

Gresgarth Hall
Caton, Lancashire LA2 9NB

La Foce

For more than a decade in the first half of the 20th century, the brilliant architect-designer Cecil Pinsent worked with Iris Origo on her garden at La Foce in Italy’s Val d’Orcia. Were they in love? “He was. And I was,” said Iris Origo. “But not at the same time.” Around the villa, a series of intimate gardens are enclosed by yew hedges and walls of gorgeous travertine stone. At a higher level, a pergola swathed in wisteria gives staggering views out over the vale.

La Foce
Strada della Victoria 61, 53042 Chianciano Terme, Siena, Italy.

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Marqueyssac

Marqueyssac overlooks the Dordogne, one of a clutch of battlemented châteaux that glare at each other from their respective peaks. The garden was created by Julien de Cervel, who adored Italy and made this place as close to his Italian dream as he could manage. The result, more than 150 years on, is spectacular: molten box topiary under tall cypresses and umbrella pines.

Les Jardins Suspendus de Marqueyssac
24220 Vezac, Dordogne, France
Tel +33 5 53 31 36 36

Miserden Park

When I let myself into the garden at Miserden, it was so still, so enclosed in its own bubble of tranquillity, I thought I might have tripped into a golden afternoon of the Edwardian era. Generous herbaceous borders run down either side of a central lawn: echinops, plume poppy, inula, stately spires of delphinium. A pergola of roses and a wide yew hedge shield a kitchen garden. Timeless. Gorgeous.

Miserden Park
Miserden, Stroud, Gloucestershire GL6 7JA
Tel 01285 821303

Plas Brondanw

Architect Clough Williams-Ellis lived at Plas Brondanw in Wales for more than 70 years, gradually surrounding himself with architectural topiary and allées of box and yew, curling flights of steps, fountains, and the best vista in Britain, ending in the peaks of Snowdonia. For him, the place became a passion “an obsession if you like,” and romance still lingers in this wonderful place. Discover more with our feature on Plas Brondanw.

Plas Brondanw
Llanfrothen, Penrhyndeudraeth, Gwynedd LL48 6SW
Tel 01766 772772

Lotusland

To British eyes, the extraordinary garden at Lotusland in Santa Barbara, California, is like a giant film set for the Disney film Fantasia with weird but wonderful cacti, superb succulents, rare cycads, flowering aloes and a forest of dragon trees. The only thing more extraordinary than the garden itself, with its Moorish rills and lotus pools, is its creator, the self-styled Madame Ganna Walska (1887–1984), who spent the fortunes of six husbands making this place. Not to be missed.

Directions to garden given when booking a visit.
Ganna Walska Lotusland Foundation (offices only) is at 695 Ashley Road, Santa Barbara, California 93108, USA.
Tel +1 805 969 9990

Head to our gardens to visit hub

When we moved back to Somerset recently, not ten miles from East Lambrook Manor, a return to this legendary garden of the prolific garden writer Margery Fish was high on the to-do list. The eight books she wrote between 1956 and her death in 1969 were formative to our parents’ generation. She was the queen of the middle-sized cottage garden – ‘as modest and unpretentious as the house’.

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Margery comes across as the epitome of modest and unpretentious. Her ‘look’ is very familiar and currently very unfashionable; crazy paving with alpine planting; silver and variegated shrubs along with signature blue conifers; loose herbaceous perennials. An absolute joy in later winter are the naturalised bulbs. The garden, and hence her writing, was about manageable ambitions: Margery gardened her own garden, and for that reason her advice is always reasonable, practical and still valid to those of us gardening away today. Our return was infused with some considerable nostalgia: my husband Julian and I had originally visited when we were first together in 1983.

Margery Fish’s snowdrops at East Lambrook Manor (1 to 10)

Mike Werkmeister and his wife Gail are the current owners and curators of this Grade I-listed garden. They came, like Margery and Walter Fish, after a busy life in London. But they have never worked harder, keeping the flame burning along with Mark Stainer, their inherited head gardener, who has been at East Lambrook for more than 40 years. Mike’s idea to host a Festival of Snowdrops has put considerable life into their February opening. Galanthophilia has caught fire among this nation of gardeners. Who would have thought it?

Well, Margery Fish of course. Margery liked green flowers, especially the green-marked snowdrops. She championed the doubles, such as Galanthus ‘Ophelia’, because they open even in dim light. She loved Galanthus ‘Magnet’ with its wiry pedicels, the pearls dancing ‘en tremblant’ like jewellery. She was not a fan of the rare and pricey yellow ones, although she kept Galanthus nivalis f. pleniflorus ‘Lady Elphinstone’ in a trough on the sunny side of the Malthouse. Seedlings abound in the garden: Galanthus  ‘Dodo Norton’ is a seedling identified in the Ditch, a remarkable snowdrop: thick, short, and with an opaqueness of white akin to sun-block.

‘One of the most delightful things about gardening is the freemasonry it gives with other gardeners,’ wrote Margery, a generous thought and a truth that abides. The freemasonry is alive and well and, it seems, her garden will be kept going, the snowdrops ever-increasing and ever more enjoyed.

Margery Fish’s snowdrops at East Lambrook Manor (11 to 20)

Our pick of the snowdrops at East Lambrook Manor

Galanthus elwesii ‘Godfrey Owen’

Very distinctive and unusual snowdrop, with six outer and six inner petals. It’s early flowering and bulks up well. It was found in the Shropshire garden of the well-known gardener Margaret Owen, in around 1996 and named by her after her late husband. 15cm. AGM. RHS H5.

Galanthus ‘Ophelia’

It was a gift of this green-centred double snowdrop, bred by Heyrick Greatorex in the 1940s, that first sparked Margery’s interest in Galanthus. 15cm. RHS H5.

Galanthus elwesii 

Discovered in western Turkey, in 1874, by the plant collector Henry John Elwes, this tall and handsome species can also be found throughout the Balkans. The joy of Elwes’s snowdrop is that it multiplies exponentially with broad, glaucous leaves and nodding, solitary white flowers in late winter. 20cm. AGM. RHS H5.

Galanthus plicatus ‘Phil Cornish’

Stunning selection from the Gloucestershire garden of Phil Cornish. Very dark green inners and pale green outers, it appears to be related to Galanthus plicatus ‘Trym’, with similar distinctive outer petals that form a curved, pixie hat. 12cm.

Galanthus ‘Ivy Cottage Corporal’

Dark-green corporal’s stripes near the ovary gave rise to the plant’s name. It is a robust plant with long, elegant flowers. 30cm. RHS H5.

Galanthus nivalis ‘Margery Fish’

An East Lambrook seedling found in the Ditch in 1987 with narrow delicate-looking petals infused with green. Can be slow to increase. 15cm.

Useful information: Address East Lambrook Manor Gardens, East Lambrook, South Petherton, Somerset TA13 5HH. Tel 01460 240328. Web eastlambrook.com Open February to October, see website for details. Admission £6. The East Lambrook Festival of Snowdrops takes place throughout February, see website for details. Pre-booking available.

The garden surrounding Sarah Pajwani’s Berkshire home is surprisingly paradoxical. At first glance, it appears a wide, naturalistic landscape, but it’s held back from open countryside by ruddy hornbeam and mixed native hedging. House and garden borrow the open views and the outlying fringe of mature willow, walnut, pine, oak and copper beech, brings a feeling of maturity to a relatively new garden.

Natural as it may seem, none of this is by chance. Sarah has deliberately selected and placed key plants for maximum effect. Using a relatively restricted plant palette, she has embroidered a free-flowing design with an intricate web of planting that is intentionally strong in winter. Although she has deliberately steered clear of traditional, heavy, evergreen winter structure, she has made use of existing evergreens, including a towering yew and tapering pine, but has used these to punctuate her planting rather than make them the main structural text. “In winter the entire garden lights up,” she says. “The grasses, in particular, capture every bit of light, as does the pond.”

Fifteen years ago, when Sarah started work on the garden, it was little more than an empty field with perimeter trees, a section of hornbeam hedging and four isolated pampas grasses marooned in various parts of the lawn. Sarah’s ambition was to link the house to the garden, and to create a series of beds that would change with the seasons and offer a different view for each aspect. To insert some fluid design and definition, Sarah brought in design studio Acres Wild, who created a large wildlife pond as a central focal point, from which a series of deep beds and curvaceous borders radiate out. It was then left to Sarah to bring in diggers to make the beds and add the all-important planting.

Inspiration came from other gardens, in particular Le Jardin Plume in Normandy and Knoll Gardens in Dorset, where Sarah was drawn to ornamental grasses. This aesthetic dovetailed more practically with Beth Chatto’s ‘right plant, right place’ philosophy. “The garden is open and quite exposed, so plants, especially in winter, need to be tough, resilient and largely look after themselves,” explains Sarah.

The full feature appeared in our December issue of Gardens Illustrated. 

The two-acre garden at St Timothee provides winter drama on a grand scale. Owner Sarah Pajwani has blended existing structure with soft plantings of mainly perennials and grasses to add interest throughout the year.

A range of tough grasses, including slow-growing Pennisetum macrourum, add soft structure to the garden, while also catching the low winter sun.

Sarah Pajwani in the garden she has created slowly over time, building on an outline plan from design studio Acres Wild to make a garden that offers interest for every season.

Sarah briefed Acres Wild to design the garden around a new pond that would encourage wildlife and act as a central focal point. The design studio created an outline of where borders and paths would go but left Sarah with the freedom to put together her own planting plan. She rescued the pampas grasses, Cortaderia selloana, from their solitary positions in the lawn to add a theatrical backdrop to the pond. Now they bring real energy and dynamism to the winter garden, interplanted with verdant evergreen Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii and Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’. Behind this, a backbone of Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’, brings warmth and energy to the Fire Border.

Sarah’s 1930s red-brick house looks out on to her Grass Island, where the planting includes a Piet Oudolf-inspired mix of grasses such as Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ and perennials that continue to provide interest in their senescence throughout winter. Beyond, a row of Lombardy poplars mark the garden’s boundary.

The classic parterre garden, devised by Acres Wild, sits between the potting and tool sheds. The idea to round the edges of the box hedging is one Sarah took from designer Mary Keen’s former Cotswold garden. Drifts of Russian sage, Salvia ‘Blue Spire’ (previously known as Perovskia ‘Blue Spire), help to soften this formal arrangement even more.

Beyond the pond, Sarah’s Fire Border is dominated by the bright stems of Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’. The dogwood’s fiery colour is cooled by a range of grasses and sedges of different heights, from the low-growing Carex comans, through Anemanthele lessoniana and Miscanthus sinensis ‘Kleine Silberspinne’ to the giant pampas grass Cortaderia selloana. Anchored by a large box ball, the border has an orange and blue theme throughout the year, with a mix of perennials, including the evergreen, blue-green foliage of Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii, and the spiky Mahonia nitens ‘Cabaret’, which offers orange-red buds opening to yellow flowers in summer, followed by blue-grey berries in autumn.

Key plants from Sarah Pajwani’s Berkshire home

Sarcococca confusa

Glossy, evergreen shrub that bears highly scented, tiny white flowers in winter. These are followed by glossy black berries. 1.5m x 1.5m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 6a-8b.

Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’

Bushy, spreading shrub, which drops its butter-yellow autumn foliage to reveal brilliantly coloured stems. 2m x 2m. RHS H6, USDA 5a-7b.

Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii

Short-lived perennial with propensity to self-seed. Best in full sun, it tolerates dry shade. Its evergreen foliage provides winter interest long after the acid-green flowers have been cut back. 1.2m x 1.2m. RHS H4, USDA 6a-8b.

Here’s our euphorbia plant profile

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’

A robust, prolific-flowering hydrangea. Flowers emerge lime green, fading to white before blushing in autumn, with desiccating flowerheads clinging on through winter. 2.5m x 2.5m. AGM. RHS H5, USDA 3a-8b.

Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’

An upright, light-catching, clump-forming perennial grass. Its high-held, iridescent flower plumes form attractive seedheads, which linger throughout winter. 1.6m x 50cm. AGM. RHS H6. USDA 5a-9b.

Cyclamen coum f. pallidum ‘Album’

Bulbous perennial that offers beautifully patterned evergreen foliage and a profusion of winter-flowering, white blooms. Naturalises well under a deciduous hedge or woodland canopy. 10cm x 10cm. AGM. RHS H5.

Don’t miss our guide to cyclamen

Helleborus Walberton’s Rosemary (= ‘Walhero’)

Semi-evergreen perennial, and one of the earliest hellebores to flower. Its star-shaped, pink flowers often appear from December right through to mid-spring. 50cm x 50cm. AGM. RHS H7.

Here’s how to grow hellebores

Cortaderia selloana

Densely tufted, clump-forming perennial with towering, waving, shaggy-feathered flower plumes, starting white but fading to cream throughout winter. 4m x 2.5m. RHS H6, USDA 8a-10b.

Don’t miss our piece on how pampas grass is back in fashion

USEFUL INFORMATION Address St Timothee, Darlings Lane, Pinkneys Green, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 6PA. Web ngs.org.uk Open 12 January 2023, 10.30am-12.30pm for Winter Talk and Walk in aid of the National Garden Scheme. Admission £16. Limited to 25 people. See NGS website to book and for details of more dates throughout the year.

When Monique and Simon Gudgeon took on Pallington Lakes in rural Dorset, it was a fishery, and they had no plans to turn it into anything else. The outbuildings would be useful for Simon’s career as a sculptor, and the fishing business would generate its own income. But three and a half years later the Gudgeons waved goodbye to the fishermen forever, as Simon’s sculptures began to take up residence by water’s edge. This was a development that neither party would have predicted before Simon decided to swap storage space for the open air – and was impressed by the way his sculpture interacted with the landscape.

The prospect of landscaping 26 acres is less daunting, it could be argued, if half of the land is under water, measured out in lakes and ponds. The only part of the emerging sculpture park that Monique planned on paper was the area around the house. Beyond the estate fencing and figurative gates (made by Simon), various winding paths spread themselves out from no single point, leading to a destination that is not clear. A giant pergola draped with roses and clematis in summer, offers a further route towards the wider landscape.

Sculptures emerge along the way, rising from grasses, sitting in woodland clearings and perched in or around water. Naturally progressing as more sculptures have appeared, the garden has benefited from Monique’s experience as a horticulturist, and a shared sanguine approach to size and scale.

Curving away from the house, a grass path slowly elevates into a raised walkway, framed initially by Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Red Head’ and Lonicera ligustrina var. yunnanensis, which was cut into mounds by Jake Hobson of Niwaki. Monique was impressed by the shaping of land at Charles Jencks’s Garden of Cosmic Speculation in Scotland, and these ideas were further confirmed by a visit to the garden of Fernando Caruncho in Madrid.

“It’s my natural inclination to keep expanding,” she says. “I wanted to try these sculptural forms, and this area and situation lent itself to that.” At the end of the spiralling path, where Lonicera ligustrina var. yunnanensis gives way to L. ligustrina var. pileata ‘Moss Green’, the pruning relaxes into Caruncho-esque cushions, intended as a reflection on the Dorset Downs. Monique was further inspired by the karikomi way with shrubs from Japan: “It’s about forming a landscape, using plants.”

The drama of the planting creates an atmosphere where land art sits easily with art on the land. A willow tunnel makes a statuesque arc around a wildflower meadow, while its straight stems and pinnate leaves merge into those of bamboo, part of a collection of 500 plants brought from a previous garden. She cheerfully grows 20 types of bamboo, and about 20 different types of willow, six of which were already thriving in the watery landscape.

Having cut her teeth as a gardener first in the show gardens of Agriframes, followed by more detailed horticulture at Architectural Plants, she now volunteers once a week at the Arboretum nursery at Kew Gardens. She is used to dealing with structure, both hard and soft, and her enthusiasm for knowledge and growing experience is particularly focussed on trees.

“I know I’m going to lose a lot of ash, so I’m looking at all sorts of trees that I can replace it with,” says Monique. New trees include sweet chestnut, three dawn redwoods, three swamp maples, a cedar of Lebanon and multiple eucalyptus. They are joined by countless magnolias and Japanese acers in the sheltered woodland walk, and 460 silver birch trees in a serene glade by the water. “After oak, birch is one of the most important trees for wildlife,” says Monique. “Hundreds of species rely on it.”

Before the lakes were created in the 1970s, Pallington was part of Thomas Hardy’s ‘verdant plain’, in the Vale of the Great Dairies. “In summer they used to run the cattle through this area. In winter, because it was always flooded, they just let it go,” says Monique. She gardens for nature as much as for herself, and was keen to maintain a winter habitat for caterpillars, in an area that was already popular with butterflies.

Building a bank to protect the garden from flooding, Monique planted it with butterfly attractants, such as eupatorium and nepeta, while maintaining quantities of nettles. The couple are privileged to have the reed-fringed River Frome winding through their garden. Left to its own devices, the waterway has formed an oxbow bend, which will one day become a small island. Just the spot for a new sculpture.

The objective when designing the new English Flower Garden at Malverleys was to link the house to a beautiful garden, and for both to sit comfortably within the surrounding countryside.

There was an existing walled garden containing an ornate kitchen garden and white garden, and a narrow terrace garden by the house. Between the two was a large lawn punctuated by swathes of Rhododendron ponticum. Many specimen trees were dotted across the lawn and there was also a wooded area.

The decision was made to remove the rhododendrons, and to use the lawn space for a new flower garden composed of a series of connecting ‘rooms’ or enclosures. The style is influenced by Great Dixter.

With the right ingredients, gardens get better with age. At Malverleys the hedges will tighten up, the woody plants will mature and the structure will become more defined. It should not only help to define the space, but also highlight all the elements within. This is never so important as it is in winter.

IN BRIEF

What A new English flower garden with mixed border planting in a formal design, influenced by the writings of Christopher Lloyd, Vita Sackville-West and William Robinson.
Where Hampshire.
Soil Variable, mostly stony acid loam with clay.
Size Ten acres.
Climate Temperate. Sheltered from the west, but exposed (with views) to the east.
Hardiness zone USDA 9.

 

Garden rooms

© Jason Ingram

1.5m-thick yew hedging separates the garden into rooms, clipped to complement the architecture of the house. This, together with the reclaimed York-stone paving that connects the rooms via a series of intimate paths, forms a unifying framework through the garden. The hedging is a perfect dark foil for the planting and acts as a remarkably effective windbreak. Yew roots are hungry and penetrating, and may need controlling so they don’t compete with the plants in the borders.

The rooms are generous in size and house deep borders, home to mixed plantings of small trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials. Each room has a different atmosphere. For the design to accommodate the existing trees and buildings, many of the rooms could not be perfectly symmetrical. However, the garden is not usually viewed from above, but from within, and any asymmetry is not obvious now the borders have been planted.

All of the rooms are on their own level, and you enter or leave each one via steps. Another feature (inspired by similar features at Sissinghurst) is the narrow yew corridors or allées, which allow for the option to bypass individual rooms and create a contrast to the more open areas.

Play of light and shadow

© Jason Ingram

To add a sense of drama while moving through the garden, light and space become part of the design. As the light changes throughout the day, the atmosphere changes in each space, highlighting the depth of the planting and the beauty of the individual plants. You can find yourself travelling along tight, shady woodland paths before entering the more open garden rooms through small gaps in the yew hedging.

Strong vistas

© Jason Ingram

One of the major challenges was harmonising the garden with the surrounding landscape. Looking out towards the parkland, we focused the vista on a group of black pines and oaks there. The tall yew hedges on either side of this corridor draw the eye towards the group of trees and encourage you to notice their presence in a way that you perhaps might not have done without prompting. This ‘borrowed view’ aspect of design is often found in Japan.

We also planted a few conifers in the borders, to echo the conifers in the parkland. On the same axis is a large ornamental pond, built to capture the various trees in its reflection.

As you get further away from the house, the formality slips away. Meadows form a subtle bridge to the countryside.

Winter seedheads

© Jason Ingram

The Apostle Garden, next to the house, is a relatively new garden made of two symmetrical parterres, each with six yew ‘apostles’. Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ is planted within the parterre. The old flower heads last through the winter and look beautiful covered in hoar frost or snow. They are pruned in spring. Ornamental grasses also play an important role in the garden and include Miscanthus sinensis ‘Morning Light’ and Miscanthus nepalensis, which self-seeds around.

USEFUL INFORMATION
Address Malverleys Gardens, East End, Hampshire RG20 0AA. Web malverleys.co.uk Open The garden is open by appointment to groups only. Admission £10. Please book online via the website.

 

Two rows of willows flank the path from the house to the orchard in Jo Hynes’ Devon garden, the new orange growth resembling a line of blazing torches. “I used to do a lot of basket weaving,” explains Jo. “This was a very wet bit of garden, ideal for growing willows. The main planting is of Salix alba var. vitellina ‘Britzensis’, which keeps its fiery colour when you weave it.”

© Richard Bloom

Higher Cherubeer is an eminently practical garden. Standing at an elevation of 150m at the head of a west-facing valley on the edge of Dartmoor, it is prey to ferocious winds. So the Hynes’ first task on arrival was to plant a protective beech hedge and shelter belts of native trees that would blend harmoniously with the surrounding fields. The garden has evolved with the family. Paths have formed along desire lines, marking out the quickest route to the orchard, chicken run, or veg patch, or a favourite spot to pause and look out at the view. Jo’s husband Tom has terraced the sloping land into two flat lawns, patiently collecting field stone and building it into dry-stone walls.

IN BRIEF

What Naturalistic woodland garden, home to collections of cyclamen and snowdrops and other winter plants.
Where Devon.
Soil Stony acid clay.
Size One and a quarter acres.
Climate Windy and rainy.
Hardiness zone USDA 8.

Gardening in the rain has been transformed by the creation of a ‘gravel superhighway’. “We can now get right round the garden without going on the grass – and better still, get a barrow all the way,” enthuses Jo. Winter visitors like it too – they can admire her extensive collection of snowdrops without getting their feet wet. A broad grass path cuts a firm diagonal through the garden, anchoring the meandering paths and irregular planting spaces, crammed at this season with a plethora of early flowering plants.

 

© Richard Bloom

A winding grass path at Higher Cherubeer is flanked by a colonnade of Salix alba var. vitellina ‘Britzensis’ ornamented with hellebores, snowdrops and other early bulbs.

 

© Richard Bloom

Surrounding the greenhouses, which shelter collections of rare snowdrops, cyclamen and hepaticas, are generous areas of planting designed to support bees. Nectar-rich trees are underplanted with early flowering shrubs and flowers that provide an invaluable food source at a lean time of year.

Jo grows some 400 different snowdrops, but is especially fond of the Greek species Galanthus ikariae. “It self-seeds round the garden so it always looks very natural,” says Jo – an effect harder to achieve with sterile hybrids, which must be lifted and divided every few years. As well as collecting, Jo has bred several new cultivars of her own, two of which, ‘Jack Hynes’ and ‘Daisy Hynes’, she named after her children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a shady bed near the house snowdrops, cyclamen and other early flowerers join winter shrubs, including the fiery orange Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ and the sweetly scented Daphne bholua. Its powerful fragrance is one of the great joys of the early spring garden.

Mature trees shelter many thousands of woodland perennials, most offering not only delicate blooms but also handsome foliage – masses of glossy-leaved hellebores, spotted and splashed pulmonarias, marbled Arum italicum and the striking giant golden saxifrage, Chrysosplenium macrophyllum, with waxy inflorescences set off by large, bergenia-like leaves. There are erythroniums just starting into flower, and various kinds of epimedium.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But for sheer beauty and variety of foliage, there is nothing to match the swathes of cyclamen clustered around the roots of the trees – their dainty leaves silver and malachite, speckled and striped, in endless variation of pattern.

Jo’s interest in cyclamen began in a garden in the south Devon village of Kellaton, where Cyclamen hederifolium had once been grown as a cut flower, and had run wild: here she collected seed and experimented with growing plants from scratch. Before long, she was travelling to see cyclamen growing in the wild: some 23 species are distributed around the Mediterranean and the Near East. “We’ve been to Turkey, to Jordan, all down the Adriatic coast, everywhere from the Crimea to the Golan Heights. We’ve seen them growing out of rocks and cliff faces, and in alpine meadows, as well as carpeting the forest floor like sheets of bluebells.”

Jo now holds a National Collection, growing some 22 species in around 80 taxa. Among the trees, Jo grows familiar species such as winter-flowering Cyclamen coum, autumn-flowering Cyclamen hederifolium and the highly scented, evergreen Cyclamen purpurascens from Lake Garda in northern Italy, where it is used in the perfume industry.

Here’s our plant profile on how to grow cyclamen

Shrubs with colourful winter stems, such as willow and dogwood, are also in abundance. These are coppiced annually in spring for the best winter colour.