National Gardens Scheme: Cornwall gardens

The Lodge

National Garden Scheme volunteer Laura Tucker profiles neighbouring gardens that open together for charity

Pinsla Bucks Head House The gARTen © Carole Drake

Gardening in a sustainable way is something we hold dear in the National Garden Scheme. In Cornwall, many of our garden owners have long been passionate about being kind to the environment, and some have simply made sustainability a way of life. Here are two pairs of gardens, close neighbours that open together.

Pinsla, Cardinham Mark and Claire Woodbine have been gardening at Pinsla for 40 years and the thread of sustainability is woven into everything they do. "We see ourselves as custodians rather than owners of the land,” says Claire, “working with nature to create a garden that’s not just for today but as a future legacy.” Their relaxed approach has allowed an informal, biodiverse tapestry to emerge. A wide variety of flowering plants is grown throughout the season, focusing on those particularly attractive to pollinators. Vegetables thrive in compost made with the assistance of a wormery and a hot bin. Woody prunings and branches are put to use in the garden or allowed to decay naturally and become habitats for insects.

The Lodge, Fletchersbridge The sound of a gurgling stream beckons visitors into the garden, a tranquil woodland valley punctuated by calming pools providing a home for frogs, newts, moorhens, mallards and dragonflies. Nuthatches, chaffinches, woodpeckers are among the regular winged visitors, together with the occasional kingfisher. Owner Tony Ryde has been gardening here for 22 years and is proud of the hundreds of trees he’s planted, including 40 different varieties of Magnolia, flowering in succussion February to November. While generally keen to encourage wildlife, Tony has discovered an ingenious way of deterring deer from eating his roses: when he visits the hairdresser, he takes sweepings of hair from the floor to hang in perforated bags on the bushes. The deer are repelled by the scent of humans. “I’m the only person who leaves the hairdressers with more hair than I started with!” laughs Tony.

Pinsla PL30 4AY and The Lodge PL30 4AN are in close proximity and will open together on Sunday, April 24 from noon to 5.30pm with cream teas served at The Lodge. Pinsla will open from 9am to 5pm on many more occasions in the summer.

Bucks Head House, Constantine With a passion for trees, 17 years ago Deborah Baker set about creating an arboretum in a high, windy field and in so doing, silenced the doubters who said it couldn’t be done. Deborah waited patiently for two years while the initial windbreak of Griselinia and Elaeagnus became established before planting 1,000 species of native hazel, alder, Scots pine, oak, sorbus and birch. Encircled by the protection of the native trees, Deborah then planted 1,000 unusual and rare specimens. The result is a dappled delight of mown paths curving beneath a foliage canopy, underplanted with bulbs, perennials, ferns and flowering shrubs including 85 different types of hydrangea. This tranquil oasis provides nesting sites and food sources for wrens, robins, chiff-chaffs, stonechats and fieldfares. Shrubs and trees are specially selected to offer berries and seed heads; woodpiles are left undisturbed and wide areas of grass remain unmown. Only collected rainwater is used for watering and all prunings are chipped or shredded and used as mulch. Among the star performers in spring are the multi-stemmed Alnus sieboldiana, with its fabulous catkins, the wonderfully fragranced Elaeagnus umbellata and the daisy-smothered Olearia cheesemanii. The gARTen Garden, Constantine Drs Sara Gadd and Daro Montag have demonstrated their professional skills in the fields of art, design and the environment by creating the organic gARTen garden, their family home for the past 20 years. Great care has been taken to cultivate and adapt the garden holistically, respecting the ecosystems. Visitors will be drawn on a delightful meander through different areas such as the spring garden, hot terrace, fernery and willow circle. Planting combinations, together with sculptural architectural features, have been carefully hand-crafted by Daro and chosen for dramatic effect. Interestingly, tree prunings are used to make bio-char, a charcoal additive which improves the water retention and texture of soil, as well as supporting mycorrhizal fungi and raising the pH of the naturally acidic soil, enabling brassicas and leafy vegetables to be grown too. The family’s horses and chickens provide a welcome natural source of manure for the crops. Sara says: “I like to grow heritage varieties of vegetables, which helps to preserve them for future generations.”

The gARTen Garden TR11 5QW and Bucks Head House TR11 5QR are close neighbours and open by arrangement on Fridays (mornings and afternoons respectively) from April to July.

The National Garden Scheme (NGS) gives visitors unique access to over 3,500 exceptional private gardens and in 2021 donated £3 million to some of the UK’s best-loved nursing and health charities raised through admissions and refreshment sales. For further information on Cornwall gardens, visit ngs.org.uk/Cornwall l