Out & About News, events, jobs to do – and the country’s best tulip displays.

MAY Out & About

Phoebe Jayes recommends some of the UK’s best gardens for tulips and rounds up outdoor jobs to do in spring – as well as the latest news

Tulip FEVER

It’s the most colourful time of year, with gardens all around the country rolling out special displays of vibrant tulips in a range of hues

Chenies Manor House Gardens

These award-winning gardens in Buckinghamshire (above) open from mid-April, to coincide with the start of the colourful tulip displays that continue into May. Tel: +44 (0)1494 762888; cheniesmanorhouse.co.uk

Hever Castle

Head to Kent this April and May for displays of glorious tulips in the historic grounds of Hever Castle (right). Some 21,000 tulips will be in bloom, usually along with beautiful tulip arrangements inside the castle. Tel: +44 (0)1732 865224; hevercastle.co.uk

Hole Park

In late spring, Kent’s Hole Park boasts 16 acres of tulips, roses and clematis, while the vineyard garden is fi lled with wisteria. Wild orchids fl ower in the meadows alongside star-shaped camassia. Tel: +44 (0)1580 241344; holepark.com

Morton Hall Gardens

This Worcestershire garden holds its annual Tulip Festival from 30 April to 2 May, in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company. See RSC costumes and swathes of tulips in borders and meadows. Booking essential. Tel: +44 (0)1386 791820; mortonhallgardens.co.uk

Pashley Manor Gardens

During the Tulip Festival, from 20 April to 4 May, over 35,000 tulips bloom in these Sussex gardens, separated into colour themes within a patchwork of atmospheric garden ‘rooms’. Tel: +44 (0)1580 200888; pashleymanorgardens.com

Spring jobs

● Start increasing the amount of water given to houseplants as they respond to increased light and day length with new growth.

● Feed roses to ensure lots of fl owers this summer. Scatter granular rose fertiliser around the base of the bush and work in with a fork; water in the feed if there is no rain.

● Mid-spring is a good time to sow lawn seed to repair bare patches or thicken the grass.

● Sow tender crops such as tomatoes, beans and sweetcorn under cover.

● Pot up dahlia tubers and start them into growth in the warmth of the greenhouse.

● Try sowing some hardy annual grasses such as briza, hordeum (below) and lagurus to add movement to summer borders.

STORM ARWEN hits northern UK

Gale-force winds caused by Storm Arwen brought down many of the UK’s special trees. The National Trust has been assessing damage caused by the storm in its gardens and estimates restoration will amount to at least £3 million. Many trees were uprooted at Bodnant in Wales (right), including a 51m ‘champion’ redwood, the largest of its kind in Wales. At Wallington in Northumberland, thousands of veteran trees were lost as winds reached 98mph. The Trust has asked for donations to help with restoration. Visit nationaltrust.org.uk/woodlands-appeal

NEW HOSTAS

from Proven Winners

Two brand new hostas join Proven Winners’ line-up of new plants for 2022. Look in garden centres this year for Hosta Shadowland ‘Miss America’, with lilac flowers and the perfect amount of cream variegation on each heart-shaped leaf. Hosta Shadowland ‘Hope Springs Eternal’ (left) has petrol blue leaves with creamy, slightly ruffled edges. Meanwhile, Hosta ‘Diamond Lake’ is the firm’s ‘Hosta of the Year’, an unusual variety that has corrugated leaves with crinkly margins. provenwinners.com

Kinsman’s KEW RANGE

New additions to horticultural supplier Kinsman’s 2022 range have been inspired by fine British gardens. The firm already stocks Spear & Jackson tools used by gardeners at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, but now has a range of Kew Gardens Gift Box sets, and Kew-inspired china mugs. The gift boxes of soap, hand cream and handwash in a range of lovely floral scents, are the perfect present for a gardener. The mugs feature botanical drawings from Kew’s archive and make a pretty set. There are also new Kew placemats, tea towels and oven gloves. kinsmangarden.com

RARE WORSLEYA flowers

Gardeners at the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden, Wisley in Surrey, coaxed a rare, blue flowered-plant from Brazil into bloom for the first time. The specimen of Worsleya procera has been growing at Wisley for 13 years, so staff were delighted when it finally showed signs of producing its eye-catching, vibrant, lilylike flowers. In the wild in eastern Brazil, it grows on steep granite cliffs, often near waterfalls, so it’s a tricky plant to grow. “The key is to replicate these environmental conditions and provide the plant with a very moist but free-draining growing medium,” says Glasshouse Team Leader Christopher Young. Worsleya procera is one of the rarest members of the Amaryllis family and is considered endangered in its native habitat. It is rarely cultivated and the Society know of only one other worsleya flowering in a public garden in recent years. rhs.org.uk/wisley

Silent SENTINEL

When the world ground to a halt in 2020, this West Sussex garden’s tulip festival went ahead unseen, flowers bloomed and new projects continued apace, all watched over by the imposing edifice of Arundel Castle

WORDS HELEN YEMM PHOTOGRAPHS MIMI CONNOLLY

This image Pots of tulip ‘Foxtrot’ are dotted through the Cut Flower Garden for extra colour. Opposite ‘Apeldoorn Elite’ tulips in the beds that border a pathway next to the glasshouse.

Above Italianate fountains bring a flamboyant touch to The Collector Earl’s Garden, with pots of tulip ‘Pink Impression’. Right Head gardener Martin Duncan, with members of the Arundel Castle garden team. The original 12th-century Norman castle, frequently battered, restored, and finally substantially rebuilt in the 19th century, has been the seat of one branch or other of the same family – that of the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, the Fitzalan-Howards – for almost all of that time. The castle enjoys a commanding position above the river Arun that gave its name to the castle and to the town that sits beneath its walls. In the 19th century, the picturesque town was further embellished with a gothic-revival cathedral. Between castle and cathedral, two grand and dominant edifices, a most intriguing garden consisting of some 40 acres has evolved, much of it developed since the succession to the title in 2005 of the current Duke and Duchess, who take a keen interest in it.

Since 2009, the head gardener has been Martin Duncan, a plantsman and garden designer who won the Kew Guild Medal in 2018. He works with a team of seven full-time gardeners and some vital volunteers and, over the past 12 years, between them they have planted 1.2 million bulbs in the light and chalky soil. They hosted the castle’s first Tulip

Between castle and cathedral, two grand and dominant edifices, a most intriguing garden has evolved

The Potager’s mixed tulip display, with Narcissus ‘Thalia’, is surrounded by brightstemmed rainbow chard.

Festival in 2015, an event that went from strength to strength – until the pandemic struck. It was, of course, devastating that Arundel’s annual, monthlong celebration, one of the best in the country, was cancelled in 2020. But for the castle’s owners and the small gardening team led by Martin, the cancellation provided a privileged opportunity to enjoy the peace and tranquillity of the garden’s spring flowers in abundance, the birdsong and the blossom, during a brief period when the sun seemed endlessly to shine on an increasingly frightened population holding its collective breath.

“The tulips were,” says Martin, “the best they have ever been – and nobody came.” For him, of course, future planning carried on as normal: that autumn he and his team planted 126,000 spring bulbs, 60,000 of which were tulips, in anticipation of Above In a wide border the spectacular festival’s return in 2021. buttressed by yew,

At the entrance to the castle gardens visitors alliums are just starting are greeted by a joyous display of massed tulips in to raise their heads above tulip ‘Passionale’.huge terracotta pots, a taste of a keenly anticipated Right The dainty flowers floral colour-binge to come. Walking upwards and of Tulipa ‘Little Beauty’. into what is essentially a 19th-century landscape, Below Mixed woodland all grassy banks and precipitous castle walls, the planting in the unusual Stumpery; the ancient ancient keep and barbican set to one side, a different stumps are from the picture begins to emerge. The wide gravel path is Norfolk estate. flanked by grass bejewelled with tulips, just one element of a long-season, informally “The tulips were,” planted melee of spring flowers augmented over the past few years: aconites, says Martin, “the best they have ever been snowdrops and the earliest narcissus will have led – and nobody came.” the march out of winter, with fritillaries, primulas and first blue, then white camassias closely on their heels with later-flowering daffodils in attendance. Overlapping these come the early-flowering tulips, followed by hordes of alliums floating above clouds of cow parsley, with laterflowering tulips bringing up the rear.

The colours ebb and flow with every twist and turn of the path and, as the season progresses, the bulbs are overtaken by a spreading population of native perennial wildflowers. Whole areas that formerly sported undulating sheets of grass between trees are thus rendered colourful for weeks on end, with paths mown between the floral drifts enabling the visitor to explore further.

The gravelled path leads gently upwards. Not to be missed along the way is the small, walled White Garden, attached to the Fitzalan Chapel, where ‘White Triumphator’ tulips and ‘White Dame’ wallflowers, the essence of tranquillity, combine beautifully in all-white borders of shrubs, roses, clematis and later perennials.

From here, a door leads into an extensive walled garden that was previously the castle’s vast

vegetable garden, into a theatrically formal space, The Collector Earl’s Garden, designed by Julian and Isabel Bannerman and opened by HRH Prince Charles in 2008. A bubbling fountain and rill here are flanked by enormous pots of ‘Pink Impression’ tulips underplanted with irises and forget-me-nots.

Beyond, and viewed through a massive hornbeamclad pergola, is the otherworldly Oberon’s Palace, both hefty structures hewn from green oak. Together with deep and curvaceous foliage-rich tropical borders littered with huge rocks, they powerfully vie for attention with the lofty cathedral beyond. Three years ago, Martin transformed the square central lawn, creating a spectacular grass labyrinth planted with massed ‘Thalia’ daffodils and scarlet ‘Apeldoorn’ tulips. The whole grassy expanse is mown in June, when it becomes a green, open-air theatre auditorium.

Above Circles of ‘Thalia’ daffodils with red tulip ‘Apeldoorn’ and a few ‘Purple Dream’ form The Labyrinth, with a view of the cathedral behind. Left The Roundhouse is wrapped in a dreamy meadow of ‘Passionale’ and ‘Paul Scherer’ tulips.

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Head TURNERS

Arundel’s most colourful and flamboyant tulips and some equally eye-catching partners

DICENTRA SPECTABILIS

A superb partner for tulips, flowering in April and offering fresh, feathery foliage.

PULMONARIA OFFICINALIS

Ideal for shadier borders, this bee-friendly early perennial grows in Arundel’s Stumpery.

PULSATILLA VULGARIS

Grow this sun-lover in very well-drained soil; silky seedheads follow the flowers.

TULIPA ‘MICKEY MOUSE’

Small flowers have massive impact thanks to their bright combination of colours.

TULIPA ‘FOXTROT’

Opulent double and lightly fragrant flowers open in a shade of rose pink that gets darker as the flowers age.

TULIPA ‘APELDOORN ELITE’

A Darwin hybrid with huge orange blooms, flushed red on the outside, in April and May.

Once-solid hedges have been sculpted to echo the shapes of the spires and buttresses of the cathedral

And so, finally, still within the original old walls of the garden, to a series of more formally laid-out areas and a beautifully restored tropical glasshouse. The traditional herbaceous borders here are studded with a range of tulips in gorgeous combinations. Martin dislikes hard edges, and prefers borders that ‘spill’, but each of these borders (lofty, later, with cardoons, lupins and delphiniums) is separated from the next by once-solid hedges that have now been sculpted to echo the shapes of the spires and buttresses of the cathedral beyond.

The mildness of the garden’s microclimate (there is seldom a hard frost here) is nowhere so much in evidence as in the highly unusual Stumpery: here, smaller spring bulbs, including little bright Turkish tulips, nestle between huge acid-green heads of euphorbias, the slowly unfurling fronds of the tree ferns and numerous magnificent, self-seeded echiums reaching for the sky.

Above Outside the Hunting Lodge in The Collector Earl’s Garden stand massed ranks of containers, filled with a mix of colourful tulips.

Planting BULBS

Practical advice from Arundel head gardener Martin Duncan

In the grass, bulbs are laboriously planted by hand and foot. To make life easier, Martin has modified longhandled bulb planters, adding metal plates, welded on to each side of the hole-cutting cylinder, which can then be relatively easily trodden into the ground to remove plugs of soil (“tulips have to be planted at least four inches deep”, he insists), before plopping the bulbs into the resulting hole and replacing the soil plugs. Bulbs are cast on the ground and planted where they land to ensure they look ‘natural’. Martin initially uses a turf cutter to remove the rough grass, replacing it after planting the bulbs with specially grown wildflower turf and subsequently using the seed-rich, late-summer mowings to spread the wildflower population around. To lengthen the flowering period of the castle’s large pots, tulips are planted close together in a single layer, with up to four harmonious varieties per pot, with different heights and flowering times. Bulbs in borders are left in situ and their numbers topped up annually. Big display beds are rotated to keep disease at bay: tulips one year, iris the next, then back to tulips and so on. Familiar tulips such as the Apeldoorns and lily-flowered varieties usually last well from year to year. Doubles and the exotic ‘parrots’ do not and must be replaced each year.

Left A gateway to the gardens, flanked by tulips ‘Apeldoorn’ and plum-purple ‘Passionale’. Below Away from the Walled Garden, in the Castle’s wider grounds, a beautifully lumpy hedge is picked out by rays of early-morning sunshine.

Even during lockdown the work quietly continued here. A small shady woodland border was created close to the Barbican with rustic benches to relieve the weary. The latest project, the restoration of the Stew Ponds, the castle’s mediaeval fish ponds, beyond a circular spinney of slim, charmingly wonky white birches and made accessible by wooden walkways, is now home to breeding swans, all manner of wildlife and maturing water-garden plantings. Its scope and success has resulted in the project winning the Sussex Heritage Award for Landscapes and Gardens. n

Arundel Castle, Arundel, West Sussex BN18 9AB. The castle and gardens open from 1 April to 1 November, 9am to 5pm. Tel: +44 (0)1903 882173; arundelcastle.org.

THE ULTIMATE LUXURY ESCAPE

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Have you ever dreamed of a stay in an authentic English country cottage? Do you look for a luxury, five-star experience when on holiday? Look no further. English Cottage Vacation is far more than your standard, luxury catered cottage; it’s an “appanage”, a term that hosts Nathan and Laura Kurton use to define their holiday concept’s special attributes.

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Well Cottage itself, which sleeps six, is an 18th-century, thatched gem, ideally placed in the small hamlet of the quality of their seafaring hospitality expertise to their homeland. As ‘live-in hosts’, Laura is your housemaid and personal chef, providing gourmet dining for three (or more) meals a day, with drinks and snacks to suit every occasion available on demand. Meanwhile Nathan is your personal chauffeur, tour guide, waiter and barman.

Well Cottage offers the best of both worlds: brilliant access to both land and sea, while combining superlative service - usually the preserve of charter yachts and five-star hotels - with the flexibility and privacy that comes with self-contained holiday accommodation. Thanks to Nathan and Laura’s passion for and knowledge of their country, your English Cottage Vacation will be truly unforgettable.

Bedchester. Located on the outskirts of both the Cranborne Chase and Dorset Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, it is within easy reach of both the English seaside and rolling hills. Head southwest and you’ll find yourself on Dorset’s famous Jurassic Coast, with its sky high cliffs, sweeping sandy beaches and 185 million years of archaeological history. Meanwhile, stay inland and you can explore Downton Abbey’s reallife double Highclere Castle, Longleat House and Gardens, Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge, among many other attractions.

While you have complete control over your itinerary and how you spend your time, you won’t have to do anything for yourself. Having spent 10 years working on high-end, luxury charter yachts, Nathan and Laura decided to anchor

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In spring, Prunus ‘Royal Burgundy’ trees are a highlight of Matthew Spriggs’ garden in Petworth.

Going DUTCH

Florist Matthew Spriggs has applied the formality and containment of gardens seen on buying trips to the Netherlands to his narrow garden at Lancaster House in Sussex, with triumphant results and lots of bold tulips

Matthew Spriggs’ walled town garden in Petworth, West Sussex, is made for spring. The compact space is only 5.5m wide, but Matthew’s clever use of its 40m length means it is far more than the sum of its parts. And when spring finally comes around here, it brings with it a thoroughly celebratory array of candy-pink cherry blossom and jewel-bright tulips.

Colour is so important for Matthew, who, with his sister Samantha, runs Petworth’s Spriggs Florist, a business that has been in the family since 1980. The shop on Golden Square was part of a townhouse that had been divided up with the shop on the ground floor. “Although there were windows and French doors going out into the garden, we couldn’t see any of that because there was a leylandii hedge obscuring the view,” Matthew recalls. “It wasn’t until the year 2000 that the property upstairs became available, and I moved in here the following year. I practically got rid of the hedge on the day I moved in!”

There wasn’t much else in the garden besides the hedge, a scrappy lawn and too-narrow borders on either side of the garden. “There were a few shrubs, including one Hydrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris, which I’ve kept, along with a rather nice yew tree at the end of the garden,” Matthew explains.

As the creative director of Spriggs, Matthew has a keen eye for design. He began work on the garden by establishing a strong vertical axis and fashioning

Above A long gravel and basket-weave brick path creates an important vertical axis down the length of the garden.

Left Fresh green fern fronds unfurl at the beginning of spring. Below Hyacinths, hostas, auriculas and narcissus are part of a spring tableau Matthew likes to use to ring in the season. Bottom Purple tulips are accented with a hit of lime-green euphorbia.

two large borders off a long central path that he laid himself. “I used brick I found in the garden and gravel from a local quarry to fill the gaps,” he recalls. The bricks are laid in a basket-weave style: “I wasn’t confident enough to do herringbone pattern, but a basketweave is a nice easy one.”

The property faces south but is bounded on all sides by garden walls and buildings that cast shade. Even at the height of summer the garden catches the sun only from mid-morning to late-afternoon, meaning a lawn would have been difficult to keep in good condition. “I started with a lot of annuals in the borders because they were inexpensive to grow – sunflowers, cleomes, tobacco plants – but I was really finding my style,” Matthew observes.

Joys of SPRING

The new season brings a confection of colour to Matthew Spriggs’ West Sussex garden

FRITILLARIA IMPERIALIS

Glamorous crown imperials make a bold statement with their striking 1m tall flowers.

CENTAUREA MONTANA

A tough perennial that thrives in sun or semi-shade and flowers from May onwards.

PRUNUS ‘ROYAL BURGUNDY’

With its striking upright habit and year-round interest, this cherry is ideal for small plots.

NARCISSUS ‘THALIA’

This graceful, creamy-white, multi-headed daffodil blooms from March to April.

TULIPA ‘DESIGN IMPRESSION’

These bright carmine-pink tulips make an impact in Matthew’s containers.

MYOSOTIS SYLVATICA

Cheery forget-me-nots selfseed to fill nooks and crannies in Matthew’s garden.

Buying trips to the Netherlands instilled in Matthew a passion for traditional Dutch planting styles, with their blend of formality, clipped forms and general containment. It’s a discourse that lends itself well to his own garden and so, with that on his mind, he introduced four large yew hedges to establish a horizontal axis. Resembling buttresses holding up the garden walls, they add drama and scale and contribute to the sense of enclosure here. They allude to much grander gardens, but this is the trick with small gardens: to create a sense of space, it always pays to be bold. “I love Great Dixter, of course. It’s stunning with the topiary and hedges and Christopher Lloyd’s planting style and what’s been going on there more recently,” Matthew enthuses.

Box balls came in, too, and there are now 37 of them in all, with 12 positioned along the garden path and others planted close to the house and terrace. Then, about 15 years ago, as the style settled in, Matthew enhanced the garden’s layers with four Prunus ‘Royal Burgundy’. “I adore the trees and I knew I wanted to get more height into the garden,” he admits. “I chose these because they have a very upright growth habit and don’t cast too much shade.

Above left Spanish bluebells, Hyacinthoides hispanica; Matthew is trying to replace them with native English ones. Top left Matthew likes to use Muehlenbeckia complexa in his floristry. Above Layers of texture, form and colour make this garden more than the sum of its parts.

When they’re in bloom it is blossom heaven, it really is. There is the “My taste has got richer and inclined to be perennial, such as ‘Purple Dream’, ‘Design Impression’, anticipation of watching the little flower buds swelling, the few days of perfection, and then gradually the richer over the years, rather than trying to be too tasteful ‘Black Hero’ and ‘Queen of Night’. “I’m a bit tied to the colour of the cherry trees, which flower at confetti starts: you’ll stand near the trees and be aware of the odd petal with green and white” the same time, but my taste has definitely got richer and richer over falling down. They also provide the years, rather than trying to be fabulous colour in autumn when the too tasteful with green and white. leaves turn bright red.” Lately I’ve ramped up the colour, but I have to

An important element of the garden is a terrace restrict myself to buying just one or two varieties and by the house that Matthew decorates with seasonal that’s really difficult when you’re a tulipaholic.” displays. In spring he brings it to life with an By May and June there are alliums here, not least assortment of auriculas and small bulbs such Allium cristophii, which bob along the borders as muscari, Iris reticulata, hyacinths and dwarf above the box balls. By summer, herbaceous plants narcissus. “I buy these through the shop, already have come to the fore and provide a fresh, green potted and growing. It’s a really nice thing to ring backdrop to summer life in the garden. They the changes and more spontaneous than the rest include Solomon’s seal, ferns, hostas and, according of the garden,” he notes. In summer, a fig tree shades to Matthew, “clumps of obligatory Hydrangea a table on the terrace, its broad, deep green leaves arborescens ‘Annabelle’, which I love”. Euphorbias, and nutty, honeyed scent filling this enclosed space. so distinctive in their structure and acidic colour, are

Tulips are essential to the spring garden and with a counterpoint here to more solid forms elsewhere. more time at home last autumn, Matthew added With the sun not hitting the garden until latebulbs to his borders. He is increasingly using tulips morning in summer and gone from most of the

garden by 5pm, Matthew has set up a seating area in a spot at the far end of the garden that catches the last rays. There is a small stumpery beneath the old yew tree and, visible from the length of the garden, a terracotta pedestal and urn found in an antiques shop in Petworth, which makes a focal point.

Matthew regularly opens his garden as part of a local Petworth charity event, and has the garden maintenance down to a fine art. Faced with clipping all the box balls and yew hedges, many people would be tempted to call in a specialist garden service, but, with his exacting eye, this is the last thing Matthew would outsource. “I’m far too much of a control freak to allow anyone else to do it,” he says, laughing. He takes a measured approach to the process, though, clipping two balls a day, for instance, or, under duress before an opening, clipping every other box ball in the name of it being a design technique. “I do all the clipping by eye because of the old stone walls – working straight to the spirit level would look wonky. I also do it all by hand because you get a much crisper finish than with electric hedge trimmers – and it lasts longer, too.”

No matter how much colour or structure there is in a garden, it remains only half-finished without wildlife. “It’s lovely having a garden to look at, but birds and butterflies animate it,” Matthew agrees. During the first lockdown of 2020, when the shop closed for weeks, he fed garden birds: “We’d have up to six blackbirds coming into the garden from neighbouring territories, followed by blackbird punch-ups… and then amazing singing all around.”

Spring is probably the busiest time of year on Golden Square, but it’s never overwhelming. “The garden is of a size where there’s just enough there for me to do for it to be a pleasure,” Matthew insists. n

Above left Petworth’s many antiques shops are an excellent place to source gardenalia –including old containers. Top right The unusual honey-scented flowers of Euphorbia mellifera. Above right Tulipa ‘Design Impression’ with T. ‘Purple Dream’ behind.

Spriggs Florist, Lancaster House, Golden Square, High Street, Petworth, West Sussex GU28 0AP. Tel: +44 (0)1798 343372; spriggsflorist.co.uk

A large, locally forged arbour makes a fitting centrepiece for the Victorian walled garden at Westbrooke House.

Modern ANTIQUITY

Joanne and Bryan Drew bought Westbrooke House in Leicestershire having fallen for its neglected Victorian walled garden. Their sensitive restoration has added a contemporary touch

A formal arrangement of beds radiates from a central arbour, brimming with tulips, honesty and euphorbia, offset by hefty yew columns.

Few spectacles in the gardening calendar are as dramatic as the sight of myriad tulips caressed by the slanting sunbeams that pierce the crisp first light of a spring dawn. It is a dazzling vision that unfolds annually in the walled garden at Westbrooke House, when thousands of shimmering tulips stand proud in colour-themed beds amid blue camassias, pink honesty and acid-green euphorbia.

“Planning our annual tulip display is my favourite task of the year,” explains owner Joanne Drew. “Every August, I spend a day sifting through a bulb catalogue, envisaging the different colour combinations.” Planting the bulbs throughout the 30 beds and borders that comprise the walled garden’s flower parterre lasts from November’s first frosts until nigh-on Christmas Day. “With such a high-maintenance garden as ours, you settle into a reassuring rhythm of doing the routine tasks for each season,” says Joanne.

One of those tasks involves sorting the 9,000 bulbs into labelled baskets – one per bed according to her ground plan – ready to plant out. “In each bed we plant between four to six different, mid- to lateflowering varieties that will blend well together,” Joanne explains. “The display is intended to peak for our NGS opening; we love sharing the garden.” It falls to Joanne and her part-time gardener, Juliet Douglas, to then work systematically, one bed at a time, lifting, dividing and moving perennials where necessary, in preparation for planting the tulips. “We make a good team. Juliet digs the holes, and I follow, dropping in the bulbs,” adds Joanne.

Faced with spring’s fabulous array, it is hard to picture the scene almost a decade ago when Joanne and her husband Bryan, a property developer, first set eyes on the three-quarters-of-anacre walled Victorian garden. “It was for sale as a building plot with planning permission, but it had such a special feel that we fell in love with it as a garden,” recalls Joanne, a dance teacher and examiner who increasingly juggles her career with her love of gardening. The south-facing walled garden was part of six acres that surround Westbrooke House, a late Victorian property built in 1887 on the outskirts of Market Harborough, and backing onto undulating arable land. “After lengthy discussions with the previous owners, we purchased the house – but primarily for the walled garden,” she explains. The walled garden had long been a grass tennis court, but over time the lawn had worn out and attempts at putting in box hedging and planting borders were not very successful. The Drews determined to restore it as a Victorian-style cutflower garden, with beds contained in period ropetwist edging or low box hedges. “I wanted a design that was in sympathy with the era of the house,” Joanne maintains. Local garden designer Rebecca Winship suggested a formal arrangement focused on a circular arbour at the centre, which delighted Joanne: “I loved the idea of a big circle in the middle, surrounded by curving paths and beds,” she says. By spring 2014, the intricate tracery of beds was marked out on the ground and the beds dug and filled with imported top soil and compost. A metal arbour was commissioned from a local blacksmith, George James & Sons, and placed in the centre. “It was very exciting going out each day, and seeing how it was evolving,” Joanne recalls. “For permanent structure, there are eight great yew Below Bryan and Joanne columns. They were bought at this Drew in the walled garden they’ve restored size, and it took two men to inch each over a decade at their one into position.” Leicestershire home. Hundreds of knee-high box plants were positioned along the perimeter of the beds and borders, while Bourbon and Gallica roses were established among perennials such as monarda, achillea, astrantia, thalictrum, sea hollies, delphiniums and phlox. Finally, in late autumn, the tulips were planted. “I love the depth of colour that you find with tulips. Even when they are in bud, there are still tinges of colour,” notes Joanne. The tulips’ companion planting is key, providing fresh new growth for a textured backdrop. “I find honesty is most useful as it self-seeds everywhere, and simply pops up between the tulips,” says Joanne.

Rope-twist edging is perfectly in keeping with the property’s era, while low hedges of box bring a fitting formality.

Mediterranean spurge is another wondrous plant, forming great outcrops at key axes between the borders. “Last year, I cut back 200 spent flowerheads from one plant,” she marvels. Drifts of tulips negotiate mounds of herbaceous peonies, angelica and shrub roses, while perennials such as aquilegias, geums and centaurea flower in tandem.

Inside the main doorway are four square beds with obelisks for clematis in which clumps of blue camassias and nectaroscordum mingle among tulips such as dusky ‘Ronaldo’, pinkish ‘Blushing Girl’ and ‘Shirley’. Joanne not only combines the colours, but also the different tulip forms, such as parrots with singles, or multi-flowered with doubles. “Pink ‘Cummins’ with deep-plum ‘Gorilla’, both fringed tulips, works rather well,” she muses.

In the first year the bulbs were left in the ground, but some rotted away while those remaining were smaller and not so prolific. “Now we always lift the bulbs, planting some out in the meadow, and last

Top To the east of the house, a contemporary garden takes its turn to supply colour in summer. Above Lunaria annua or purple honesty, makes a superb tulip partner. Right Joanne ties in clematis with part-time gardener Juliet Douglas.

year we donated them to our local gold club for a border behind the putting green.” Once the tulips are lifted, dahlias take their place, and any gaps in the planting are filled with perennials and annuals that Joanne grows from seed: “Seeing the greenhouses packed with seeds and seedlings is a great joy to me – it puts a smile on my face.”

A doorway on the northern wall leads to a fruit and vegetable parterre laid out in a series of square raised beds overlooked by a greenhouse. In the central area are large, oak-framed cloches, built by a local cabinet maker, for brassicas and salads, plus a broad strawberry bed and a fruit cage. “It’s very productive and functional,” points out Joanne.

From the kitchen garden, a doorway leads to a natural lily pond, edged with hostas, ferns and Japanese maples. Nearby stands a huge weeping willow, dawn redwood, Ginkgo biloba and, under the kitchen window, an Acer davidii. “We are blessed with some magnificent mature trees – those near the house have tree preservation orders,” Joanne observes. The drive is flanked by giant

Top Next to the entrance, four square beds feature obelisks for clematis, and camassias with the tulips. Above A euphorbiaflanked doorway frames the fruit and vegetable parterre beyond. Left Limes and giant redwoods line the drive.

NOTEBOOK Old & New

Timeless accessories are carefully chosen to match this Victorian walled garden’s heritage and to complement its beautiful planting

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Above Bespoke oak redwoods alternating cloches protect crops in with lime trees. the kitchen garden with a Victorian-style It is no surprise to greenhouse from Alitex learn that Joanne’s and espaliered fruit. parents were keen gardeners. “My dad focused on vegetables, while my mum loved fl owers.” Previously, she and Bryan had a half-acre garden, but even there Joanne ran a greenhouse and developed a love of propagating which, with so many beds now to fi ll, is invaluable. “I’ve learned as I’ve gone along – you can’t beat hands-on experience.” While she masterminds the planting, it is Bryan who cares for the lawns, maintains the water features and prunes countless metres of box hedging. “Then Juliet prunes all the rose bushes and fruit trees,” says Joanne. “She has been involved from the outset, and we’ve worked together on every project.”

Once the walled garden was established, Joanne and Bryan looked at the lower garden, wedged between the house and a small river that marks the boundary. Twin perennial borders are inspired by the Great Broad Walk at Kew, and beyond them lie modern features such as a slate water feature and rill. “Although the borders were planted in 2016, they’ve fi lled out surprisingly quickly,” notes Joanne.

These features add a very di erent dimension to this traditional garden, bringing it fi rmly into the 21st century. And, a project that started out simply as a yearning to restore a Victorian walled garden has taken on a life of its own. “The garden is now so important to us,” says Joanne. “I’m out there most days. In fact, I plan more what’s happening in the garden than in the house, but then it was the garden that brought us here in the fi rst place.” ■

Westbrooke House, 52 Scotland Road, Little Bowden, Market Harborough, Leicestershire LE16 8AX. Opens for the National Garden Scheme on Sunday 1 May and Sunday 26 June, 10.30am to 5pm, by prior booking, but check ngs.org.uk for updates.

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1 The hand-forged central arbour in the walled garden incorporates designs copied from pargeting on the house, with additional motifs such as English roses and twisting clematis. 2 A cistern panel lead fountain by Redfi elds English Leadwork adds the soothing sound of water. 3 Nicknamed ‘Sid the Stag’, this life-sized, bronze-fi nish sculpture stands in the shade of a mature copper beech. 4 Height is added in the walled garden with a screen of pleached crab apples, Malus ‘Evereste’.

At One With THE LAND

A few considered adjustments and thoughtful plant introductions have enhanced and formalised Simon Gill’s Cotswold spring garden without diminishing its historic essence

This image In a font from Haddonstone, ‘Angélique’ tulips complement Prunus ‘Kanzan’ blossom. Opposite ‘Uncle Tom’ tulips in a parterre by the thatched barn.

The Cotswolds are renowned for their rolling countryside, glorious gardens and quaint, stone-clad villages. On the outskirts of Burford, part way up a single-track lane, with views across adjoining meadows to the picturesque village church, this 17th-century former farmhouse and its one-acre garden seem to single-handedly encapsulate the springtime spirit of the Cotswolds. “The character and location of the property were irresistible – almost part-and-parcel of the landscape,” explains its owner, Simon Gill.

In spring, the garden’s skyline is fringed with clouds of blossom from mature, ornamental cherries, their boughs thick with candy-floss-pink or snow-white flowers. Neighbouring lilacs perfume the garden’s air and masses of naturalised bulbs enjoy the free-draining, stony soil and spread

Above Prunus sargentii in the orchard, where swathes of daffodils are naturalised in the grass. Below Ribes sanguineum, the flowering currant, is a classic spring shrub. thickly through the garden. Daffodils dominate the rough grass of the orchard, while wild garlic, grape hyacinths and bluebells fringe the parterres and stony pathways of the main garden. Tulips adorn urns, fonts and box-edged parterres and bring an early flush of colour to awakening beds and borders.

None of this was apparent, however, when Simon moved to the property in December 2006. It was midwinter, and the appeal of the house, with its exposed beams and open hearths, overshadowed the merits of the south-facing garden, which merely provided an appropriate setting. Simon had noted the swathes of lawn, orchard grass and the trees along the boundaries that afforded some privacy and a barrier to noise. “I was drawn to the house, the thatched barn and outbuildings, but I knew very little about gardens and plants,” he confesses.

Fortunately, he inherited an expert: Tony Davies, the gardener who had tended the plot here for over two decades and understood it almost as well as his own. Tony has continued to dig, prune, train, tie in, pull out, nurse, weed and feed the garden, advise Simon on new introductions and keep everything looking better than it should.

The bare bones of the garden, essentially the same stone landscaping that is intrinsic to this part of the Cotswolds, lay fully exposed in winter: a stone-clad terrace and several dry stone walls, some in a state of poor repair. Two rectangular, low-walled garden rooms were also visible, the remnants of ancient barns no longer standing. “My neighbour and longterm resident, Joan Smith, who is 101, has a painting that indicates how the barns once looked,” Simon reveals. Later on, he keenly embraced this historical anecdote and, after waiting a year to see what actually grew in the garden, he designed and planted

Top A craggy old lilac, in full, perfumed bloom. Middle Ruffled, plumpurple tulip ‘Uncle Tom’ has peony-like flowers. Bottom Grape hyacinths, Muscari armeniacum. Above right Box-edged parterre beds are full of peony foliage, plus drifts of bluebells, their pink forms, and wild garlic. flower-filled box parterres in the area incorporating the former barns’ footprints.

“My predecessors had created a peony garden in one partition; the other was overrun with Japanese anemones that were cleared to make way for the box-edged parterre,” Simon explains. “Directly opposite, in the elbow of two outbuildings, was a neglected, gravel-filled, south-facing corner, used for drying washing.” He removed the whirligig washing line, brought in a small digger and carved out a second, matching parterre. The mirror-image gardens were planted with herbs – rosemary, thyme and purple-leaved sage, Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurascens’ – interspersed with tulips in spring, followed by ‘Princess Alexandra of Kent’ roses in summer. “We chose deep raspberry-pink, peonyflowered tulip ‘Uncle Tom’ to complement the preexisting, pink-flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum, and to reference the colour and form of the adjacent

Beautiful BULBS

A selection of pretty spring flowers for formal areas of the garden or for naturalising

TULIPA ‘YONINA’

This lily-flowered variety with elegantly reflexed, deep pink petals flowers from late April, on 45cm tall stems.

TULIPA ‘WHITE TRIUMPHATOR’

This 50cm tall tulip’s flowers have a purity that belies their strong and sturdy nature.

HYACINTHOIDES HISPANICA

Both English bluebells and the Spanish kind (above) can pop up in pink or white forms.

NARCISSUS POETICUS

One of the last to flower in May, pheasant’s eye daffodils are delightfully fragrant.

HYACINTHUS ‘BLUE JACKET’

A very heavily scented hyacinth, with dense flower spikes of deep Prussian blue.

ALLIUM URSINUM

Be warned that wild garlic is quite invasive, but if you have room to let it romp, expect carpets of spring flowers.

Above Beyond clumps peony garden,” adds of daffodils in the Simon, who is now orchard, the pleasing, old, dry stone walls that experimenting with divide sections of the interplanting tulips in garden can be seen. the peony bed itself to give the illusion of peonies a month before their due date.

In keeping with the garden’s stone infrastructure, Simon positioned an aged stone font between the two parterres. This is planted with pink and white tulip ‘Angélique’ to mimic the haze of pink and white cherry blossom in the sightline behind. Billowing with blossom, the pink cherry, Prunus ‘Kanzan’, was planted by Tony over 20 years ago. The garden’s former owner regularly returned from garden visits with new, must-have plants and this cherry was one of them. “Design didn’t really come into it. My task was to find the most suitable planting spot in the garden,” Tony recounts. Then a whippy, five-foot specimen, the cherry has matured to a fulsome six metres. “Its Barbara Cartland pink blossom is a bit messy,” confides Tony. “It’s like confetti at a wedding.” A second pink ornamental cherry, Prunus sargentii, was already in the orchard. “It’s one of my favourite trees,” says Tony. “It cheers you as you walk along the lane, waving its blossom in spring and illuminating the garden with foliage in autumn.” He admits that the twisted old medlar at the back of the garden comes a close second.

The original stone terrace flanking the house has been sympathetically extended to accommodate

an outdoor dining table and chairs. Two square, boxedged parterres are stuffed with incredibly fragrant, bright-blue hyacinths ‘Delft Blue’ and ‘Blue Jacket’. “Their perfume wafts right into the house,” says Simon. These are shot through with white, lilyflowered tulip ‘Triumphator’ to complement the fragrant white flowers of Mexican orange blossom, or choisya, that are moulded to the house. Two weathered stone planters, bought at auction, stand either side of the main entrance; a third sits in the left-hand parterre. “We are looking for a fourth,” acknowledges Simon, glancing at the mismatch. The stone vessels contain an accidental cocktail of tulips, “by virtue of placing late bulb orders,” he confesses. “We were too late to secure enough of our preferred pink ‘Angélique’, so we substituted similar but shorter ‘Foxtrot’ and combined it with a complete newcomer to us, lily-flowered bi-colour ‘Yonina’.” It was a resounding success.

The handful of ‘Angélique’ bulbs Simon did manage to procure were planted in beds by the house, refreshing those already interred. “We only lift potted tulips; the rest stay in the ground and many successfully reappear the following year,”

Top right Old stone fonts are planted with tiers of tulips – ‘Yonina’ and the shorter, peony-flowered variety ‘Foxtrot’. Above An inherited ancient flowering cherry, with confetti-like white double flowers. explains Simon. They are engulfed with an eruption of baby blue forget-me-nots, which complement the pastel pink of the tulips. In the main rose border, battalions of tall single tulips bring colour to otherwise leaf-green beds. Bold, raspberry-plum ‘Pretty Princess’, huge-headed, rose-pink Darwin hybrid ‘Mystic van Eijk’ and glowing goblets of dark pinky-orange ‘Avignon’ add jolts of colour and pick out the reddish hues of emergent rose foliage.

These more formal alterations and introductions, geometric parterres, architectural stone planters, clipped box hedging and precisely planted tulips bring gentle order to an otherwise largely relaxed and sprawling garden that has evolved over time. There’s an ever-increasing colony of over 20 different narcissus in the orchard, including swathes of pheasant’s eye daffodil, Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus, and the late 19th-century introduction, golden-flowered ‘King Alfred’. “I’m pleased to have some of the older varieties, none of which we have planted – they are just part of this Cotswolds garden’s vernacular,” says Simon. Like the authentic stone framework, they are intrinsic and in keeping with the overall sentiment of this lovely garden. n

The Bigger PICTURE

When garden photographer Zara Napier took on a sizeable organic garden in Cambridgeshire, she was keen to incorporate inspiration from favourite gardens she had shot while maintaining its established and wildlife-rich ecosytem

WORDS CLARE FOGGETT PHOTOGRAPHS ZARA NAPIER

Zara loves the froth of cow parsley that adds informal charm in late spring, while the long grass is studded with red tulips and other blooms.

“The previous owners grew everything organically, so there’s a lot of wildlife. The garden has its own happy little ecosystem”

I‘‘ ’ve been keen on plants ever since I was a teenager,” confesses Zara Napier, admitting that she used to grow spider plants and busy Lizzies in her bedroom at school. Her interest was fuelled by visits to her keen gardener grandparents and their garden in

Ireland, which had banks of primroses in spring, and a walled garden full of plums and raspberries in summer. It’s a passion that has endured and is now entwined with her working life. Having studied for a degree in publishing and spent time working at the

National Trust’s photo library, Zara now specialises in photographing gardens – her work regularly featuring in the pages of this magazine. Almost 20 years have passed since her first garden feature was published, but it’s clear that the thrill of visiting and photographing other people’s gardens hasn’t dimmed. “People are so generous about letting me go into their gardens at all times of day, and I’ve made many friends – particularly through the National Garden Scheme, which is such a wonderful organisation. Support for their charities has never been so important,” Zara enthuses. “And people open up. They may be shy, but then suddenly, out in their garden, they are full of stories.” Then, of course, there are the myriad ideas picked up along the way – happily, Zara has a large garden of her own in which to try out the planting and design that catches her eye while she’s at work. It’s almost 21 years since she and her family moved to their thatched cottage between Newmarket and

Cambridge. Zara was brought up in Newmarket, her family having long-standing links to horse racing, so when she and her husband Francis, who is originally from the Scottish Borders, decided to relocate with their young family from London to the countryside, this part of Cambridgeshire was the natural choice. They rented at first, then looked for somewhere to buy. “It was between this house and one with a tiny garden that was like a building site, so it wasn’t a hard decision!” Zara recalls. The garden the Napiers took on wasn’t the famed

‘blank canvas’, but neither was it full of unwanted features and plants that weren’t to their taste. In fact, much of the garden today is very similar to how they found it. “The previous owners had brought up their family here. They were very keen on growing fruit and vegetables, so we inherited a lovely garden. They’d grown everything organically, as do we, so there’s a lot of wildlife. We don’t have problems with pests

Top The apple trees are smothered with pale and diseases because pink blossom in May. the garden has its own

Left Carefree beds of happy little ecosystem,”

Narcissus ‘Starlight Zara explains. Enviable

Sensation’, Geranium phaeum and stipa mature plants like surround a seating a ‘Madame Alfred area next to the house. Carrière’ rose on the

This image Cowslips and oxlips have popped up in grass kept long. Below right ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ is one of the roses Zara inherited. Below left Stands of alliums bloom close to the vegetable garden.

house walls, or yellow-flowered ‘Canary Bird’, gave her a beautiful backdrop for introducing new planting and ideas from the gardens she visits.

In long grass between her garden and the neighbouring field, red tulips and white Narcissus poeticus var. recurvus emerge each spring, inspired by planting Zara remembers seeing beneath cherry trees in the gardens of Trinity College, Cambridge. A few years ago, she planted a white flowering currant, Ribes sanguineum ‘White Icicle’, recalling one she’d admired at Beth Chatto’s garden in Essex. “This is just luck, but leucojums are coming up underneath it now and together they make a happy pair,” she notes. Not too far away, the garden at Anglesey Abbey also offers plenty of inspiration – especially its Winter Garden. “I always know it’s going to cheer me up, even when it’s freezing and grey.” Following last year’s visit, Zara is keen to plant more trees and shrubs for winter interest: red-twigged limes, Above Shade-loving planting below this Rosa birches with orange ‘Canary Bird’ includes bark, unusual hazels Brunnera ‘Jack Frost’ and willows. and Geranium phaeum. A trip to Parsonage Right Much of the grass has been ‘no-mow’ since House in Essex sowed 2018 when a hot summer the seeds of an idea turned the lawns brown. for one of Zara’s

The ‘boiled sweet’ border of lily-flowered tulips is added to each year and includes magenta ‘Mariette’ and purple ‘Burgundy’.

garden’s loveliest late-spring features: a border of lily-flowered tulips in pink, purple and pale yellow. “I remember starting it with my daughter when she would have been nine or ten. You’ve got to think of something that will light up their inspiration at that age, and at Parsonage House there was a ‘boiled sweet’ border – I thought that would inspire her.” Refined lily-flowered tulips such as primrose-yellow ‘Sapporo’, ivory and pink ‘Elegant Lady’, pink ‘Mariette’ and purple ‘Burgundy’ mingle with the pink and green viridiflora tulip ‘Florosa’, as well as white daffodils including ‘Sailboat’ and ‘Pueblo’.

Perhaps it’s because of her line of work that Zara is so closely attuned to the wider movements within gardening. Reading James Rebanks’ book, English Pastoral, has endorsed her belief in the importance of taking care of the land and, last summer, following advice from gardener and author Charles Dowding, she made forays into ‘no-dig’ gardening, enjoying a successful squash harvest as a result of the trial, which, she says, saved time, while also being kinder to the soil and leaving its structure undisturbed.

Several years ago, after a long, hot summer left much of the grass brown, she and Francis decided to adopt a ‘no-mow’ approach as well, and now much of the lawn is left to grow long as meadow. “At first it was full of dandelions, which some people

Above left Foxgloves are an enduring favourite, grown by Zara in every garden she’s owned. Top right Behind a lilac in full flower sits a bench that’s over 100 years old and originally belonged to Zara’s grandparents. Above right An unnamed red pulmonaria with ‘Segovia’ daffodils. would have considered a nightmare, but they were beautiful, especially when the seedheads would glow in the evening light.” Then came buttercups and ox-eye daisies, and Zara has noticed that there are now far more butterflies.

“Bats dance over it in the evenings and I’ve seen hares moving along the mown path,” she enthuses. “There was always a lot of clover in the grass, which attracted the bees, so it made sense not to cut it. It has been a wonder – not just to us but to all the insects and other life that depends on them.” Recently she has been listening to the advice of bee expert Dave Goulson, who maintains that the best thing gardeners can do for wildlife in their garden is to ‘leave it’. “It is difficult to do this because I think our instinct is to tidy and control and make patterns, but it is freeing when we don’t have to worry about being too tidy,” Zara explains.

Despite drawing inspiration from so many wideranging sources, Zara’s garden is a cohesive whole: the perfect combination of a light touch and a sure hand. “I’m conscious of having a rhythm to the garden by repeating plants,” she says. “And while I love spring, I try to ensure there are things that add interest all year round, something I know is going to look good each season. You need something exciting to look forward to – like a party!” n

The Artist’s PALETTE

Designer Sophie Conran is renowned for producing homeware adorned with exquisite floral motifs, so it’s little wonder that her abundant Wiltshire garden is such a true reflection of her talents

WORDS CATRIONA GRAY PHOTOGRAPHS BRITT WILLOUGHBY DYER

A series of rectangular beds behind Sophie Conran’s smart Georgian home feature a stylish combination of latespring performers.

Anyone who is familiar with Sophie Conran’s range of homeware knows that the designer has a deep love of nature. Floral motifs blossom across linen napkins and twine their way around candle holders. There are abundant vases, in different shapes and sizes, designed to hold everything from a couple of delicate stems to an armful of abundant branches. Even her most wellknown line – the long-running tableware collection for Portmeirion – sees a simple white dinner service elevated by a nod to the outdoors, its organic, concentric pattern evoking the ripple of water in a pond or the circles in a tree stump. It comes as no surprise, then, to discover the care and attention that Sophie has put into her own garden, set in the heart of the Wiltshire countryside. You approach it via a long winding drive, past cherry trees laden with frothy white blossom and underplanted with masses of bulbs, the early snowdrops giving way to wood anemones and fritillaries as spring progresses towards summer. By the time you reach the front of the house – a Georgian manor in honey-coloured Bath stone – you can tell that Sophie is passionate about gardening. Climbing roses cover the mellow, neoclassical facade, and the steps up to the front door are flanked by an array of terracotta pots, planted Roses cover the house’s mellow, each season with an ever-changing display of blooms. neoclassical facade, and steps Sophie bought the property in 2013 are flanked by terracotta pots and, over the past nine years, she has been restoring and adding to the original

Clockwise from top

Alliums and bearded iris with ferny fennel; huge windows look out onto the terrace; the sweeping driveway; euphorbia with ‘King Canute’ lupins.

On the lawn, a set of furniture is perfectly positioned to take in the meadow views and a lovely specimen Judas tree, Cercis siliquastrum.

The beds next to the house brim with alliums, lupins and euphorbia, with large box balls for a sense of solidity.

planting scheme. “The garden had been quite neglected – there hadn’t been much done to it for about 25 years,” she says. “So we’ve been piecing it back together again, bit by bit, as well as adding some new features.”

The sheer scale of the project might have felt daunting to some: aside from the gardens that surround the house, there is a separate vegetable garden, a fern garden, a pond, a meadow, and some 30 acres of woodland. However, Sophie, the daughter of famed designer and restaurateur Terence Conran, grew up watching her parents embark on a very similar journey of their own.

“When I was younger my family moved to a house in Berkshire not all that far from here,” she recalls. “There were falling-down greenhouses and dilapidated walled gardens filled with Christmas trees. I saw it as my playground and watched my parents as they slowly rebuilt everything, from the vegetable garden to the fruit cages. It gave me a blueprint of what I could do here.”

Having completed several courses in horticulture and honed her eye at her previous gardens in West Sussex and Dorset, Sophie was well-placed to begin the transformation at her new home, although she has allowed it to evolve gradually rather than making a rigid plan. “This place talks to me – it

tells me what to do,” she maintains. “I suppose it’s a mixture of instinct and a sympathetic view of the house and its surroundings. I want to create a feeling, so I’m really trying to make everything as alive as possible – filled with flowers and buzzing with bees, butterflies and birds. It’s a place to enjoy, and to be immersed in nature.”

One of the first things she did was to put in a new set of beds at the back of the house, which, in May, brim with a sea of alliums. Their pompon heads, in hues of pink, purple and white, add a playful and colourful note, especially when set alongside velvety irises, purple lupins, and frilly masses of hesperis. The rounded shapes of the alliums are echoed in the clipped box balls and euphorbia, which add yearround shape and structure to the borders.

Traditionally, 18th-century manors like this one would have been surrounded by acres of parkland with the gardens kept well away from the house. By introducing planting immediately around the property, Sophie has created the maximum possible impact when looking out from the huge, floor-to-

“I’m really trying to make everything as alive as possible, filled with flowers and buzzing with bees”

Above Rosa ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ grows on the wall of the house. Left The late-spring blossom of Cercis siliquastrum is first borne on bare branches – until the season’s new foliage begins to burst its buds. Below The swelling heads of violet globe artichokes in Sophie’s vegetable garden.

ceiling windows on the ground floor, as well as integrating her home with the garden.

This is particularly in evidence when you step out of the drawing room and onto the long stone terrace that runs along the back of the house. From there you can look out across the borders to the fields beyond, while Sophie has made a virtue of the slightly dilapidated nature of the terrace itself. “The terrace is made from bits of old stone floors – great big slabs that are completely falling to pieces – so I’ve interplanted it with erigeron, creeping thyme, and aquilegias,” she explains. There’s even some hollyhocks and Verbena bonariensis dotted among the paving stones, while ‘Madame Alfred Carrière’ roses spread across the walls, adding to the sense that the place is literally blooming with life.

To the right of the house the land sweeps up a hill that is covered in woodland, consisting mostly of old beeches. Every May, this delightful area is carpeted with drifts of wild garlic, which scents the air with its distinctive tang. Sophie – who is a keen cook and has written several cookery books – picks and uses it in the kitchen, using it to make pesto and garlic butter and to flavour everything from soups to sautéed mushrooms. She also obtains an

Above Peonies rub shoulders with sweet rocket and foxgloves. Top right Self-seeded plants in stonework and a relaxed clipping regime give the garden a wonderfully laid-back air. Right White camassias with red campion. Below Clematis montana var. wilsonii in full bloom.

abundance of produce from her vegetable garden, Above The land around which is another ongoing project. “We’ve just had a Sophie’s Wiltshire home fantastic new greenhouse reinstated on the site of an includes a pond and meadow, as well as 30 old one, using the existing foundations,” she says. “It acres of woodland. was made by Woodpecker Joinery, and we’re thrilled Right ‘Mount Everest’ with it.” Raised beds contain rows of brassicas, root alliums bring a cool vegetables and globe artichokes, and close by are freshness to late-spring planting schemes; add two tunnels made from coppiced hazel, one of which clusters of their bulbs is covered in sweet peas, the other with different in autumn for a display varieties of beans and gourds. of stylish globes.

Yet despite all this activity, Sophie has more plans afoot, working alongside the two full- “I get very excited time gardeners who keep the grounds running smoothly. The about plants – I want fern garden, long neglected, is all of them. I’ve just being replanted, as are the borders at the front of the house. Existing planted masses more plants are being catalogued throughout the garden and new white alliums” ones are constantly added – she’s just put in an order for three paulownias, commonly known as foxglove trees because of their clusters of spectacular lilac blooms.

“I get very excited about plants – I want all of them,” she says, laughing. “I’ve just planted masses more white alliums, including ‘Mount Everest’, and I love Nepeta ‘Six Hills Giant’, which just goes on flowering for months on end. One of my absolute favourites is a peony called ‘Coral Charm’ – it’s particularly beautiful because it starts out a wonderful coral colour before fading to pink and then ends up turning almost white.”

Alongside the careful planting are plenty of selfseeders, including red campion and linaria, which have been given the freedom to romp through the garden, filling in gaps and creating a cheerful abundance of flowers that feels both romantic and quintessentially English. It’s the sort of place that you never want to leave – and, for now, Sophie certainly isn’t planning to. “I really love living here,” she concludes. “It keeps me fantastically busy – there’s always so much to do!” n

A weathered urn overlooks Mothecombe’s secluded pond, with the green, leafy planting lending an exotic air.

Nectar POINTS

Anne Mildmay-White and her son John take their custodianship of Mothecombe House in Devon seriously, planting with nectar-rich blooms and native wildflowers and working with conservation groups to create a haven for bees and other wildlife

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS MARK BOLTON

Above Mothecombe and its walled garden date from the 1700s, but only recently has the garden’s focus shifted to wildlife with naturalistic planting such as these Iris sibirica. Right The white, papery, bell-shaped blooms of the snowdrop tree, Halesia Monticola Group. R egular visitors to the South Hams in South Devon may have seen signposts to Mothecombe, but perhaps never taken the turning down the winding lanes to visit this quiet country estate. The house, a beautiful Queen Anne jewel box, is built with local grey stone, and its facade features ten sash windows that overlook a wooded valley carpeted with spring flowers and studded with fresh blooms of camellias, rhododendrons and azaleas as it wends its way down to a picture-perfect beach. The grounds consist of a formal walled garden in front of the house, a walled vegetable garden that is now planted to attract bees, an orchard and a woodland garden that leads down to the sea.

Mothecombe was built in the early 1700s with parts of the walled garden being laid out at that time too. The house has been owned by the Mildmay

Above John MildmayWhite pictured with his mother, Anne, and head gardener Martin Haxton. Below Foxgloves, alliums and silvery stachys in beds in the walled garden, where red valerian has seeded into the old stone walls, which also support a lovely old wisteria.

family since 1873, with the latest generation to take over being John Mildmay-White, his wife Lily and their three boys, Hector, Ted and Kyffin, ably supported by John’s mother, Anne, who, while no longer living at the house, still works as the garden’s director. The house is at the centre of a farming estate and the local village has always been home to its gardeners and workers as well as local families. In 1925, eminent architect Sir Edwin Lutyens was engaged to make improvements to both the house and garden. He remodelled the wisteria terrace to include a bed of agapanthus at each end and designed two garden buildings to house generators that would provide electricity – these buildings are now a shed and a gardeners’ bothy. Anne spent time in Bermuda during her early years as a doctor, and it was there that she became interested in gardening: “It was so easy to grow seeds in that climate, and I filled the house with trays of seed as I experimented. However, taking on my husband’s family home at Mothecombe in 1982 was a different undertaking Anne opened up the altogether!” She set about making her mark on the woodland, letting in gardens and spent years much-needed light and clearing and replanting, using mixed native species planting shelterbelts to protect the magnolias, and adding flowering cherries and ornamental crab apples to the orchard. She also opened up the woodland, letting in much-needed light and planting shelterbelts to protect the more exotic shrubs. The creation of woodland walks encouraged drifts of foxgloves, red campion and bluebells to flower, and these now thrive beneath a mixture of silver birch, cherry, whitebeam and crab apple. Gardening in a sheltered Devon valley has its advantages, but it makes sense to be watchful. As Anne notes: “I love the magnolias, which do so well with us, but I now examine the swelling flower buds with an eye on the weather forecast after losing most of the Magnolia campbellii subsp. mollicomata and Magnolia ‘Felix Jury’ buds to the Beast from the East in 2018.” A path that meanders through the orchard leads onto the woodland walk, which is part-covered by huge, arching camellias, crinodendrons and cornus, which offer structure and interest even in winter. This path then cuts back past a romantic pond that

Paths wend their way through the woodland parts of the garden, ultimately leading to a secluded beach.

Above A stand of mauve-blue camassias in the walled garden. Left The vibrant double flowers of Crataegus ‘Paul’s Scarlet’; in the clean Devon air, its bark is covered in lichen. Below Gunnera does well by the romantic pond, overlooked by pink rhododendrons. reflects the crimson flowers of the surrounding mature rhododendrons. There’s an almost exotic feel to it, enhanced as it is with plantings of gunnera, lysichiton, Darmera peltata and zantedeschia. The soft gurgling of the stream fills the air and the garden feels hidden and somehow lost in the soft folds of the Devon valley. Next to the pool an urn stands sentinel, and Anne mentions that they once found a pre-war pack of cigarettes beneath it, perhaps secreted by one of the gardeners or an errant family member! Skirting

The rows of scented round the pool and heading down the woodland path, lavender positively shaded by aged trees and thrum with bees on their shrubs, it comes as a lovely surprise to emerge in bright endless quest for pollen sunlight onto an utterly tranquil and gloriously sandy Devon beach. Since 2013, the emphasis in the garden has been on attracting pollinators. Having read Dave Goulson’s seminal work, A Sting in the Tail, about bumblebees and the threat to their existence, Anne immediately set about replanting the two walled gardens with bee-friendly plants. Gone are the showy, cut flowers (she’s not a big fan of dahlias), now replaced with swathes of lavender (15 types including ‘Ashdown Forest’ and ‘Grosso’), towering echiums and blocks of phacelia, borage and allium. The original fruit cages are no more, and while some flowers for cutting remain, used mostly in the holiday cottages that dot the valley, the rows of scented lavender positively thrum with bees on their endless quest for pollen.

The orchard is being carefully managed, its understorey slowly filling with self-seeded wildflowers and grasses, while the old horse paddocks are also being turned into wildflower havens under the watchful eye of John and head gardener Martin Haxton. These areas are showing positive signs, with various indicator flowers starting to pop up: red and white clover, bird’s foot trefoil, self-heal, dove’s foot cranesbill and even a solitary bee orchid that amazed the family with its exotic-looking flower and sudden appearance. Yellow rattle, a plant that helps suppress grass when preparing a wildflower meadow is being seeded every year. The grass is left at a medium length to encourage the shorter wildflowers and, as Anne points out, “We leave areas of nettles and brambles, which host more varieties of butterfly and moth caterpillars than most flowers do.”

Such is the success of the bee initiatives that the Bumblebee Conservation Trust will be running identification training days here. Honey bees, leaf-cutters and miner bees have all been spotted, and there are plans afoot to bring in local primary schools for education days. Also involved is Andy Byfield of Plantlife, a conservation charity promoting native wild plants, as well as the Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. He has been very enthusiastic about Anne’s efforts and is trying to encourage local landowners to create ‘bee corridors’ – areas of land that join together to help support populations of insects and other

Top left Wisteria and matching bearded irises thrive in the shelter of the walled garden. Top right Long rows of lavender are gearing up to flower in summer. Above right Plant bulbs of Scilla peruviana, Portuguese squill, in well-drained soil and sun for their showy flowers. Above left Bright Rhododendron ‘Percy Wiseman’ fills the garden with colour each May.

The patina shows through here but animals. A community network called More Meadows is also intending to use the gardens for the emphasis is not plant identification and scything training days. on perfection Anne and John take their privileged roles as custodians of this historic garden very seriously, both preserving the work of their ancestors and adding to and improving it in a thoroughly modern way. The garden is a much-loved heirloom: the patina shows through here but the emphasis is not on perfection, rather the wildlife and the spirit of the place – something that the bees and the insects will be eternally grateful for. n Mothecombe House, Mothecombe, Holbeton, Plymouth, Devon PL8 1LA. The gardens usually open every Tuesday from 1 April to 30 September, and for charity open days each year, but check flete.co.uk/gardens for updates.

Allium lusitanicum ‘Summer Beauty’ boasts pretty heads of soft pink flowers that appear from June to August.

Know Your Alliums

There’s more to alliums than the familiar purple globes of late spring, and nobody knows this better than National Collection holder – and allium devotee – Jackie Currie

Bobbing above late-spring borders, their perfect purple spheres brilliantly filling the gap between April’s tulips going over and June’s roses and perennials getting started, it is no wonder that alliums are so often recommended. They’re a garden designer go-to on account of their chic looks, but they’re also popular in ‘old-school’ gardens – if ever a plant could be called ‘essential’, alliums are it.

As a result, most of us are pretty familiar with the purple, globe-shaped alliums, those stalwart May-flowering varieties such as Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’. But with familiarity comes a certain ubiquity, so it’s not surprising that many gardeners seek out something different: alliums in colours besides purple or those with quirky flower shapes beyond the spherical. Unfortunately, that’s also when many of us come unstuck. This vast genus comprises more than 1,000 species from varied habitats across the northern hemisphere and because of this diversity, not all alliums grow the same way. That’s what Jackie Currie quickly discovered when she decided she wanted to get to know alliums better. “I’m a garden designer,” she explains, “and my business partner and I always used A. hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ in the gardens we worked on. I wanted to expand what we were using and I thought there must be others.” Before planting anything unfamiliar in a client’s garden, Jackie likes to trial it for a few years first, so after a bit of research, 50 allium hybrids were duly planted at her allotment. “I fell in love,” she says. “They were all so amazing – I just bought more and more. I found them fascinating, but the big problem was how to keep them all alive – they aren’t all easy.” Researching their origins and growing requirements took her to Wisley’s libraries, where she was introduced to Plant Heritage. By that point, Jackie was already growing around 180 alliums, and once she’d discovered that they weren’t represented in the charity’s network of National Collections, becoming a collection holder was a foregone conclusion. Trips to the Netherlands followed – almost all the allium bulbs we buy are Dutch – including a visit to the largest grower of alliums in the world, where Jackie really got to grips with their care.

It turned out to be a revelatory visit. Having observed the Dutch commercial growers, Jackie realised we’ve been growing our alliums wrong. While they will usually do well from an autumn planting, putting on an impressive show in their first spring, if you’ve ever been disappointed when the same display fails to materialise in the second year, or the flowers seem to be dwindling, it’s time to have a closer look at their growing requirements.

Jackie splits alliums into three groups depending on what they like, one of which is her ‘lift, dry and bake’ group. “What kills an allium isn’t winter wet,

Above A mixture of deep purple Allium hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ and the paler flowerheads of Allium hollandicum.

Above left Starry flowers of Allium cristophii begin to open from their bud. Above right Allium nigrum is a good choice for fresh white flowers. Below right ‘Purple Rain’ bulbs can be split and replanted to create big drifts of vibrant colour. Below left A. obliquum is an easy choice in green.

it’s summer wet,” she reveals. “They need a summer rest.” Now, Jackie emulates Dutch growers and these bulbs’ natural habitats and lifts the alliums in this group once they’ve fi nished fl owering, letting them dry o and bake in her greenhouse (or garage if the greenhouse gets too hot – 23-26ºC is ideal). She simply places the bulbs in sawdust-lined trays, which she covers with newspaper to protect them from direct sun, then replants, ideally in mid-September.

This group includes many of the familiar purple alliums: A. afl atunense and A. giganteum for example. Happily, stalwart A. hollandicum ‘Purple Sensation’ can be left in the ground. “It is still the best allium for colour,” she notes, recommending you plant the bulbs in autumn, then plant top ups each autumn for the next two years. After that, seedlings from the fi rst lot of bulbs will have reached fl owering size, and you’ll never have to replant. “You’ll have hundreds,” Jackie confi rms.

O ering an even greater return is ‘Purple Rain’, a variety Jackie rates highly. This one belongs to her second group: alliums that can be left in the

Top left Delicate Allium roseum fl owers in June. Top right An emerging fl ower of A. stipitatum. Above right ‘Hair’ is quirky but invasive, warns Jackie; red bulbils at the base of the fl ower help it spread widely. Above left Impactful ‘Globemaster’ is sterile so won’t seed around. ground but should be lifted every three years and divided (see also ‘Summer alliums’ on page 73). Lift ‘Purple Rain’ and you’ll fi nd large bulbs that split apart generously, giving you trugfuls to replant. ‘Globemaster’ belongs to this group too. “This is a lovely old hybrid. It’s good because it’s sterile, so if you like to leave the seedheads on but you don’t want an allium that’s going to seed everywhere, ‘Globemaster’ is the one for you,” Jackie advises. She recommends lifting the bulbs after three years because they become congested, and replanting the individual, viable bulbs. It’s the same for A. stipitatum ‘Violet Beauty’. “If you lift and divide after three years, you’ll have lots of small bulbs to replant, but do it as soon as it fi nishes fl owering because the bulbs drop down deep in the soil to a good 20cm, which means they can be hard to fi nd!”

Jackie’s fi nal group comprises alliums that don’t fl ower every year. “Their bulbs are a bit like garlic,”

she explains. Alliums such as A. ampeloprasum or ‘Mercurius’ will flower in year one, but then the bulb splits into six to ten smaller ‘cloves’, which won’t flower the following year. The solution is to lift the bulbs, pull them apart and plant the bulblets individually. Do this in conjunction with planting new bulbs for a few years for continuity.

For white flowers, Jackie says Allium stipitatum ‘Mount Everest’ and A. nigrum are the best, with ‘Mount Everest’ flowering in mid-May and A. nigrum taking over at the end of the month and into June. “Neither of them need to be lifted and baked,” she says, “but A. nigrum doesn’t bulk up, so after about three years it does tend to disappear.” For blue flowers, she recommends A. caesium and the smaller species A. sikkimense and A. cyaneum. For limegreen flowerheads, look to easy A. obliquum.

Years of study have given Jackie encyclopaedic knowledge, to the point where she can identify many alliums from their bulbs alone. “You get to know their quirks when you work with them all year round,” she says. Avoid A. vineale ‘Hair’, she advises – “it’s a real weed”. A. roseum is “one to be careful with because it spreads around and can be a bit of a pest”. Allium schubertii, with its exploding constellations of starry flowers is “a weird one”. The bulbs we buy of this species are already five years old, and it only lives eight to ten years then “drops dead”, so it doesn’t have the longevity of others.

Summer alliums

Jackie’s group of alliums that need to be lifted and divided every three years also includes many summerflowering varieties, which are well worth exploring for their ability to extend the display. Look out for Allium lusitanicum ‘Summer Beauty’, which has pale violet-pink flowers loved by bees and butterflies, or white-flowered A. tuberosum (also known as garlic chives). Jackie recommends dainty pink A. angulosum (mouse garlic) and A. nutans, which also goes by the common names of Siberian chives or blue chives, for underplanting roses to hide their bare stems, and A. cernuum, the nodding onion, for its flowerheads of pendent bells (similar to those of Nectaroscordum – now Allium siculum). Then there’s dark purple A. wallichii, which flowers even later, from August to September – imagine, an allium in late summer’s prairie schemes! All can be lifted and their clumps split by a spade for replanting.

Above left A. stipitatum ‘Mount Everest’, another excellent white variety. Top right ‘Beau Regard’ has lovely, strongstemmed flowers. Above right Egg-shaped Allium sphaerocephalon flowers are produced in June and July.

‘Eros’ is the “allium for people who don’t like alliums”, while shuttlecock-shaped, wine-red A. atropurpureum should be grown as an annual, since British gardeners haven’t a hope of replicating the summer baking it gets in its native Iraq – even putting its bulbs in an egg incubator over summer failed to work for Jackie. Quirks aside, it’s clear that if you only think of alliums as round and purple, you’re missing out on a wealth of other possibilities. “You can really extend the flowering season by using quite a mixture,” Jackie says. It’s just a matter of getting to know them better. n

Jackie’s National Collection of alliums opens by appointment – visit plantheritage.org.uk for more information. Visit euphorbia-design.co.uk for Jackie’s garden design practice.

Perfect Pots

The diverse verbena genus offers go-to border plants that are loved by designers as well as superb choices for summer containers, such as these three varieties

Verbena rigida

Hailing from southern Brazil and Argentina, Verbena rigida is, as you might expect, not completely hardy. That’s one of the reasons it’s usually grown as an annual bedding plant, but it will come through British winters as long as temperatures drop no lower than -5°C. It has a spreading habit, and in borders its stems often run underground, rooting as they go and building into lovely clumps. It thrives in containers and you can take cuttings in late summer to ensure plants for the following year’s pots, and as an insurance policy against a cold winter. One of the best things about this plant is its long flowering period, from June right up until the first frosts, and it also has a delightfully airy appearance. ‘Santos’ is a bright purple variety, but there’s not much between it and the species.

Verbena ‘Sissinghurst’

This vibrant pink variety has the sort of erect yet trailing habit that makes it a container gardener’s dream. Plant two or three in a pot or urn and let it billow outwards, its wiry stems laden with clusters of ombré pink flowers. It fares best in full sun, and the container needs to be kept amply fed and watered, or it could succumb to mildew, but otherwise expect flowers from June right through to November. For a pot with flair, follow the example of cut-flower doyenne Sarah Raven and team it with Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ whose tiny white flowers will add a contrasting haze, or with other verbenas in different colours. Rich ‘Superbena Burgundy’ would look nice, or deep purple ‘Showboat Midnight’.

Verbena ‘Cake Pops Pink’

This brand new variety of Verbena rigida from supplier Proven Winners features spherical clusters of baby-pink flowers and extra tolerance of heat and humidity, making it a superb choice for the southern US. Ideal for pots or hanging baskets because of its attractive trailing habit, it also shares other verbenas’ long flowering nature, producing blooms continuously, especially if regularly fertilised and watered. Should plants start to look tired, the stems can be trimmed back by around one third, and a dose of liquid fertiliser applied – within a week or two there’ll be fresh growth and new flowers. Also launching this year is ‘Cake Pops Purple’, with flowers in a delicate shade of mauve.