THE
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GARDEN AUGUST 2022
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This image Helenium
‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’ and Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ glow in the sun at College Barn. Above right Magenta Knautia macedonica.
NATURE’S WAY The ecologist owners of College Barn in Somerset have been guided by their subjects’ natural habitats to create a living breathing landscape WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS CAROLE DRAKE
I
t should come as no surprise that a pair of ecologists have made a beautiful, wildlifefriendly garden in rural Somerset around a house with resident barn owls; what does surprise is that this peaceful setting was once a place of heavy industry populated by the collieries and slag heaps of the Somerset Coalfield, where the last pits closed as recently as 1973. Alex Crossman and Jen Weaver moved to College Barn in a small village near Midsomer Norton in 2012. A modest converted mine building next to Alex’s parents’ house, it’s surrounded by trees, rough grass and wildflowers, and it fulfilled the couple’s ambition to “live in a wood”. Jen, a professional botanist, was delighted to find the poetically named corky-fruited water-dropwort, Oenanthe pimpinelloides, a pretty white umbel of damp meadows, in their new garden. This was much to Alex’s amusement, since his father had been waging AUGUST 2022 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 23
Above A boardwalk path is framed by clipped box, sedums, Verbena bonariensis and grasses. Right Ecologists Jen and Alex, who’ve created the beautifully planted garden at College Barn.
war against it for years for spoiling his lawn. “If ever I find corky-fruited dropwort when I’m surveying an area, it tells me that the grass is quite interesting. It’s a plant that says ‘stop and look around’,” says Jen. Although Alex made a few small beds in their garden and planted them with roses and wallflowers, the couple had no plans for anything more ambitious. But then, in 2014, a trip to the garden designed by Piet Oudolf at the Hauser & Wirth gallery in nearby Bruton gave Alex a lightbulb moment. “I was amazed by the before and after photos that showed how bare soil was turned into a huge perennial meadow in just six months,” explains Alex, who returned soon after for a guided tour with the head gardener. “We were so inspired that a couple of weeks later we got a turf cutter and stripped the lawn off the front garden.” Taking inspiration from Piet Oudolf’s planting at Bruton and with Orchard Dene Nurseries’ beautiful
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“Alex’s layout is grid-like, while my borders are curvy. We echoed planting between the two spaces to connect them” Above The vegetable garden, filled with netted brassicas and herbs. Below A busy border of old favourites includes purple Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’, Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’, Agastache ‘Blue Fortune’ and wild carrot.
catalogue at hand, full of information on growing conditions and plant combinations, the couple drew up a plan. As Jen explains: “We divided the area into two: one side for Alex and the other for me. Alex’s layout is grid-like with straight paths between beds, while my borders are curvy. We echoed planting between the two spaces to connect them.” Jen wanted a wild look to her planting, so she used lots of grasses and perennials including Knautia macedonica, its little magenta, scabious-like flowers weaving themselves in and out among their neighbours; Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’, a cow parsley with lacy, dark purple foliage; and spiky Eryngium yuccifolium with its toothed leaves and small white flowerheads. “I love a natural look with accents of muted colour dotted throughout, a bit like a meadow,” she explains. Alex prefers intense colour, revelling in purples and oranges from smoky amethyst Salvia verticillata ‘Purple Rain’ and coppery Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’, a magnet for pollinators. While Alex removed all the grass in his area, Jen retained some because she loves to lie on it. Next came the kitchen garden, a part-walled space that Alex and Jen divided up with a grid of raised beds, now bursting in summer with a mix of edible and ornamental plants. “I love the way it becomes a jungle as the season progresses, though as a result we’ve had to widen the paths over the winter because last year it was a fight to get along them,” says Jen. AUGUST 2022 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 25
Border with Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’, salvias and Eryngium giganteum.
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“We have a confusing mix of soil so it is worth trying things. In some areas it’s rich and fertile, in others it’s mostly coal spoil” Above Evening sun lights up a dining terrace, edged by fiery rods of Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Firedance’ and graceful Amelanchier canadensis. Left Nectar-rich Betonica officinalis ‘Hummelo’. Below A curved border of grasses and perennials.
Later, Alex and Jen resolved the connection between the house and the flower borders in the front garden by using narrow boards to build an area of decking inspired by a Tom Stuart-Smith garden, sharpening the look of the beds with steel edging. “We levelled some areas too where previously we had just worked with the topography of the land as we found it,” says Alex. They also brought the planting closer to the house by making a border of ferns and astrantias up against the wall of the house and planting an Amelanchier lamarckii to add height closer to the building, making changes as their experience of house and garden revealed precisely what was needed. As ecologists, Alex and Jen always refer back to the native habitat of a plant to establish whether it might work in their garden, although as Jen points out: “We have a confusing mix of soil so it is worth trying things. In some areas it’s rich and fertile, in others it’s mostly coal spoil. Nepeta govaniana is from the rocky foothills of the Himalayas, so it shouldn’t do well in our damp soil, but it seems to love it here.” Unlike others in the genus, this nepeta has an upright form, bearing pale creamy-yellow flowers over soft green leaves. AUGUST 2022 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 27
Fullers Mill is an enchanting and tranquil seven-acre creation. It combines light dappled woodland with a plantsman’s collection of shrubs, perennials, lilies and marginal plants enhanced by the reflective cooling waters of the River Lark, Millpond and Culford Stream.
© Marcus Harpur
Now is a wonderful time to visit the garden in full bloom with bursts of colour and fragrance at every turn.
Visit fullersmillgarden.org.uk or call 01284 334 396. Opening times: Wednesday 2pm - 5pm | Friday, Saturday and Sunday 11am - 5pm West Stow, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP28 6HD
Charity Nos 1155156 | Scotland SC040180
“In Australia I really noticed how different the plants were and that encouraged me to look more closely at native plants when I came back” Several plants have been repeated throughout the ornamental borders, favourites that seem to mix well with just about anything and everything. These include furry, ground-covering Stachys byzantina ‘Silver Carpet’, and the luminous grass Sesleria autumnalis, its neat chartreuse leaves topped with wands of creamy white flowers. In the Post Box Border, so called because it curves from a roadside wall fitted with the eponymous post box into the garden in a crescent shape, silvery sea holly Eryngium giganteum reflects light from its prickly leaves, amid a grassy mix of Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, Stipa tenuissima and S. gigantea, interspersed with a range of vivid flowers, including agastache, heleniums and wild carrot (Daucus carota). Weeding this border, which has
Above left Soft, plumes
of yellow goldenrod and lilac Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Fascination’. Top right Verbena officinalis var. grandiflora ‘Bampton’ in a gravel path set with timber. Above right Plum Monarda ‘Prairie Night’ with Helenium ‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’.
“an epic seed bank” can be a slog admits Alex, who is now looking for part-time help in the garden. Growing up next door, Alex always had a patch of garden to call his own and was never happier than when outside pushing a wheelbarrow around. Jen’s peripatetic childhood, meanwhile, took her to Australia where her eyes were opened to the wonders of a distinctly different landscape. “I really noticed how different the plants were there and that encouraged me to look more closely at native plants when I came back. It inspired my interest in habitats too, and the way that plants fit together in communities.” Jen keeps a constant eye on the wild edges of the garden, while Alex wants to start new projects and needs time outdoors: “If I don’t get time outside doing manual stuff I get pretty miserable.” AUGUST 2022 THE ENGLISH GARDEN 29
Sweet TREATS Mindful of their garden’s ecosystem, Jen and Alex choose flowers rich in pollen and nectar
HELENIUM ‘SAHIN’S EARLY FLOWERER’
HYLOTELEPHIUM ‘AFRICAN SUNSET’
Its yellow florets flushed with burnt orange, this helenium enjoys a moist, rich soil.
Mounds of mahogany foliage with clusters of pink flowers from late summer.
In summer the air is filled with the soft hum of thousands of invertebrates A sweep of the rough meadow that covered the whole garden when Alex and Jen moved here remains as a link between the ornamental garden and surrounding woodland. In spite of the couple’s attempts to introduce yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor), a semi-parasitic plant that can weaken coarse grasses, the grasses remain dominant. Having sought advice from The Barn Owl Trust, however, Alex and Jen are happy that this dense thatch, full of small mammals, makes a plentiful larder for their resident owls, if not a welcome habitat for flowers. The couple are now discussing ideas for their next project, inspired by the landscape of a local disused quarry, where birches and hazel grow through gravel, among pools and large rocks. Nowadays, as the garden reaches its late-summer zenith, the air is filled not with the sound of a pit wheel turning, but with the soft hum of thousands of invertebrates. They feast on both the ornamental and wild plants that thrive in a garden that balances sumptuous contemporary planting with sensitivity to the area’s native flora and fauna. n
Above Wide paths in the vegetable garden allow a jungle of planting to spill over the edges, like pretty Chrysanthemum coronarium.
VERBASCUM CHAIXII ‘ALBUM’
GERANIUM ‘ROZANNE’
Tall, pretty spires of white blooms with purple-pink eyes on this sun-loving mullein.
The classic purple flowers keep on coming on this lowmaintenance hardy geranium.
AGASTACHE ‘BLUE FORTUNE’
PERSICARIA ‘FIREDANCE’
Clumps of tiny soft-blue flowers held on long stems with a liquorice fragrance.
Perfect in prairie-style schemes, this unfussy bistort can reach up to 90cm tall.
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College Barn, Oakhill, Radstock, Somerset BA3 5BJ. The garden will open for the National Garden Scheme in 2023. See ngs.org.uk for details.