What makes this garden so special...
‘We’ve created it together, in our own style, and now we can share our vision with friends and visitors’
garden and i had always wanted a rill,’ she says. ‘The Brazilian slate paving gives a nice, clean effect and is a good foil for the blue and white planting, which changes throughout the year.’
claire grew all the plants from seed or bulbs, or from cuttings over a period of years. The dry stone walls were rebuilt by John using recovered stone from around the garden. ‘We had to work with the materials we had available, and we use reclaimed materials as often as possible,’ she says. The pair also made their own wooden obelisks and laid paths of stone and brick.
One set of garden features not found on site, but bought specially, are the large Greek pithoi-style pots that dot the garden. ‘They represent special occasions,’ claire explains. ‘The first one was for my 50th birthday, and others were for our first and 10th wedding anniversaries.’ The pots are large and sculptural, acting as repeated focal points throughout the garden, and claire also uses plants to draw people from one room into another. ‘There is always a little wow factor as you turn a corner,’ she explains.
Tulips are the show stoppers in the spring months, but when they finish flowering, they are replaced with annuals such as salvias, scabious, ammi majus and nigella, and by dahlias in late summer. and though the main design of the garden is complete, claire adds and tries new things every season. ‘We never stop refreshing the planting and layout,’ she says. ‘i always tell people that this garden is a work in progress. Gardens never stop evolving, and it is wonderful to see it developing over the years.’
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