Seeking inspiration

Taking on a large house and garden restoration project is quite intimidating, and from the start I knew we wouldn’t be able to do it alone.

Carl and Roxy, two of the hardest-working gardeners I’ve ever met, have cleared the walled garden at the front of the house; peeling back decades of neglect to reveal an incredible space: 25 metres square, surrounded by traditional Cornish walls, and with almost no original planting other than the four ancient yews which flank the now invisible path from the front gate to the house. In one sense, it’s an incredible opportunity to start again. On the other hand, it’s an intimidating challenge; how on earth to do justice to the history and potential of this place.

I knew that what I really needed right now was a mentor: someone who has faced a similar challenge and created a wonderful garden from nothing. So yesterday morning we headed across the River Tamar from Cornwall into Devon to meet a miraculous woman who, over the past 27 years, has constructed a truly beautiful garden out of a former tip.

It was a lovely day to visit: warm, soft west country air and a slight greyness to the sky (I always think gardens here look their best when the sun isn’t shining). Kay greeted us warmly and sat us down to talk through what she had already done, and what we were starting to think about doing. I arrived feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed, and the first thing she did was to put me at ease and say that she had felt exactly the same at the beginning: and had actually found help with her own mentor. I love the idea of a network of gardening women, each passing on their own wisdom down the generations. My grandmother was a wonderful gardener, but she hoarded her knowledge and took it with her, rather than sharing, so it was rather lovely to be given reams of advice and recommendations. As we talked and wandered Kay’s garden I tapped out tonnes of notes and ideas in my phone and left feeling inspired and invigorated.

As seems typical of all devoted gardeners, Kay isn’t remotely happy with her own creation – it’s not the best time of year to see the garden, there has been an awful drought, and she hasn’t been as active in it this year as she’d like. Nevertheless, we wandered around oohing and aahing at the beautiful vistas, delightful plant choices and the lovely sounds of the different water courses tumbling into each other. It’s not really my garden to share so I won’t post the many photos I took save for these two which help to illustrate some of the most useful advice she gave us.

Everything in the foreground and middle ground here has grown up in less than thirty years, which just goes to show that one must choose plants and position them with an eye to the future and not the present. One of the most common mistakes gardeners make is to plant trees and shrubs too closely together, leading to over-competition and a crowded vista. Especially in the lush dampness of the south west, shrubs and trees can grow metres or more in a year.

Kay has used carefully designed pathways, curving hedgerows and the Japanese concept of the “borrowed view” to delight the visitor to her garden. Instead of having the whole scheme visible from one area, parts of the garden are gradually revealed, which makes it a tantalising place to visit. We had been toying with ideas of the traditional Elizabethan formal garden, with symmetrical patterns of neat low hedging but I’ve firmly abandoned that idea now, and I think we will play with larger plants and different areas of the walled garden which need to be visited to be seen. In the photo above you can also see how she uses grasses to add structure and interest to the planting, and to create an interesting under-storey to the larger shrubs and trees.

As well as ideas on how to being approaching the design and planting, we left with tonnes of practical advice on everything from which nurseries to source trees from to which magazines to read, to the need to be ruthless when getting rid of unwanted trees. I’m feeling newly optimistic and raring to get on with the task of reimagining this garden.