At One with THE LAND
WORDS & PHOTOGRAPHS JOE WAINWRIGHT
Enjoying a truly magical position on the South Devon coast, Arts & Crafts Coleton Fishacre was designed for the D’Oyly Carte family as a serene escape from the pressures of London life, merging beautifully with its astonishing maritime setting
This image Anemones, salvias, penstemons and actaeas in the calming Rill Garden.
Opposite Arts & Craft Coleton Fishacre, built from local slate rubble, perches above its extensive gardens.
Come Rest A WHILE
Fusing monastic and Arts & Crafts traditions in a spiritual place of service, artistry and contemplation, Nigel Dunnett’s forward-looking garden design for Hospitalfield in Arbroath is a worthy stopping-off point on any horticultural pilgrimage
WORDS PILAR MEDRANO DELL PHOTOGRAPHS RAY COX
The Arts & Crafts house overlooks geometric beds of medicinal plantings and the sculpture Rio, by Eduardo Paolozzi.
This
Above The finger-like grass paths offer total immersion in the planting while enabling up-close views.
image Seedheads are left in place to feed birds once winter arrives.
This image A more productive area is still bursting with ornamental appeal thanks to colorful flowers for cutting like
Above One of the two seating areas, sheltered by an old apple tree.
dahlias and cosmos.
The walled garden at Broughton Sanctuary on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales is transitioning from the hazy, hot days of late summer to the cool, misty mornings of early autumn. The last of the summer flowers are putting on their final show of colour, while autumn favourites come to the fore and the first tinges of yellow begin to creep across leaves and stems.
Redesigned by renowned landscape designer Dan Pearson in the early 2000s, the two-acre walled garden sits at the heart of the estate’s rural business park and wellbeing centre. The estate has been the seat of the Tempest family for 900 years, and the original 18th-century garden would once have supplied Broughton Hall with fresh produce. In more recent years the site has functioned as a garden centre and commercial nursery. Now the walled garden is a private space for the use of Broughton Sanctuary guests and individuals using the business park. At its centre, the Utopia building, designed by Sir Michael Hopkins, provides a central hub for meetings and events. With an elevated view over the garden, the vast windows of the building provide the perfect frame to enjoy the first hints of autumn.
Richard Preston, Broughton Sanctuary’s resident landscape architect, is no stranger to the site. “I remember visiting the walled garden as a child when it used to be a garden centre,” he recalls. “Then, when Dan’s design was being built, I was completing my horticultural apprenticeship and I helped create the new space. At the time, it was quite a new thing for a walled garden to be turned into a romanticised, contemporary and naturalistic garden. To put a modern building in the space and then create a garden to complement it was a big leap forward.”
Unfolding from the Utopia building, a vast lawn fills the centre of the garden. While most stately homes are known for their pristine level lawns, Dan designed this one to have undulating mounds that form a landscape reminiscent of the rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales. Areas of grass are left to grow into airy meadows, adding to the landscape-like feel. “Dan had to overcome some very tricky topography in the walled garden,” explains Richard. “It slopes off at an angle from the top corner to the bottom corner, so he couldn’t terrace it. Instead, he looked at what was going on in the surrounding landscape and brought that into the walled garden to create a feeling of nature.”
Gently meandering down either side of the central lawn, two curving pathways weave through deep borders of naturalistic planting. The borders are full to bursting, spilling over the paths and enveloping timber benches where mounds of Alchemilla mollis froth out from under the seats and long-flowering Persicaria amplexicaulis creates an inviting spot to linger among the swathes of rich red flowers.
Right Great drifts of fiery red bistort and plummy pink Eupatorium maculatum in a border of naturalistic planting.
Bottom right The sharply cut yew buttresses make a pleasing contrast with the layered planting.
Bottom left A soft haze of billowing molinia.
Below Biscuity gold glowing plumes of Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’.
While the block planting is bold and generous in size, the height and softness of the plants themselves creates a feeling of being immersed in the centre of the borders. Upright clumps of Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’, with their bleached plumes of golden flower panicles intermingle with the tall, fluffy pink heads of Eupatorium maculatum Atropurpureum Group and the cylindrical white flowers of Sanguisorba canadensis
Tucked among the ornamental plants, herbs and edibles add seasonal interest to the borders, while giving a subtle nod to the walled garden’s past. Tall airy stems of Foeniculum vulgare and thistle-like flowers of Cynara cardunculus are planted alongside Anemone hupehensis ‘Praecox’, Thalictrum aquilegiifolium and Kniphofia ‘Minister Verschuur’. The sheltered walls of the garden provide the ideal spot for trained fruit, including figs and pears.
Colour is just one way to customise a greenhouse to make it your own. This one blends in beautifully in sage-green.
AS YOU LIKE IT
A greenhouse is the most expensive purchase most people will ever make for their gardens, but with even off-the-peg models offering customisation options, there’s a plethora of ways to make it your own
