VILLAGE GREEN
A lush expanse of succulents and colour, this vicarage garden is even home to a beautiful stream
Their first glimpse of the Old Vicarage in the Somerset village of Weare reminded Trish and Jeremy Gibson of a scene from the Hammer House of Horror. ‘It looked very grim,’ laughs Trish, ‘with masses of dense shrubs right up against the house and a lot of blank lawn, as well as a tennis court surrounded by a hideous chain-link fence.’ In spite of that, the couple ‘felt an immediate pull’ and relocated here from north Cornwall in 2013, to be near their family in Bristol.
The overgrown Victorian shrubberies, thick, dark hedges and towering Wellingtonia might have put off some buyers, but Trish and Jeremy have renovated a series of houses and gardens in London, Bristol, Cornwall and France over the years. They love nothing more than getting their teeth stuck into a new project and could see the potential of this neglected garden on the edge of the Mendips, with its views of the village church and surrounding hills. Trish is the plantswoman and garden historian – she has an MA in Garden History and wrote a book on the landscape architect Brenda Colvin. Jeremy describes himself as ‘the grunt’ – the digger, the builder, the hedge cutter. Together, they make a great team.
Restoring the house took longer than the couple expected, but when they eventually began work on the garden, one of the first things they did was remove the shrubs that obscured views of the plot out of the front windows, replanting the border with low herbaceous perennials. ‘The blank lawn did the appearance of the house no favours either, so we added box spheres along the edge of the drive and planted a tiered Cornus controversa for autumn colour,’ says Trish. The dogwood now stands in a bed planted with a combination of cerise, silver and white including herbaceous perennials such as magenta Knautia macedonica and pink
❝THE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF THE GARDEN – FRAMED BY ARCHITECTURE OF A RANGE OF PERIODS – GIVE WONDERFUL BORROWED VIEWS❞
Dianthus carthusianorum, delicate umbels like fennel and wild carrot, and grasses including molinia and Pennisetum macrourum; clipped box provides year-round structure.
‘We’re not tennis players,’ admits Jeremy, though when they first moved in the tarmac court was invaluable for storing all the garden ornaments and plants he and Trish had brought with them from Cornwall. Planning to make a parking area for cars at the lower end of the court, hidden from the house by the natural contour of the garden, they laid a line of bricks to work out the curve of the drive. ‘The aim was to design a new garden on each side of the driveway to complement the rest of the garden and at the same time allow us to plant in a more contemporary style,’ says Trish.
Both subsoil and topsoil were brought in to create new borders and a mound that rises to the same height as the one in front of the house, divided by paths into three distinct planting areas: reds and purples; yellows, greens and whites; pinks, silvers and purples. ‘I loved planning this using Pinterest to make boards for each of the three colour-themed sections,’ says Trish. The outer perimeter beds are planted with blues and whites, such as long-flowering
Geranium Rozanne (‘Gerwat’), asters and grasses including tall, upright Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’. Columns of
Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’ punctuate the border, replacing the original pencil cypresses that failed to thrive on the heavy clay soil. Existing hedges provide a strong backdrop to which Trish and Jeremy added a low hornbeam hedge, creating layers of interest.
Planting on the mound is a subtle mix of grasses, herbaceous perennials, bulbs and shrubby trees including the purple-leaved
❝It’s a joy to see the range of invertebrates we have here, especially the dragonflies that seem to be attracted by the stream❞
Indian bean tree, Catalpa x erubescens ‘Purpurea’, white-flowered black chokeberry, Aronia melanocarpa, and the stag’s horn sumach,
Rhus typhina, flaming orange in autumn. ‘I particularly like the pink, silver and purple section, which includes Rosa ‘Blush Noisette’. It’s a prolific flowerer,’ says Trish. Teamed with the pink rose are silverleaved Artemisia ludoviciana ‘Valerie Finnis’ and Teucrium fruticans, and the pretty self-seeder Linaria purpurea ‘Canon Went’, which threads its dainty pink flower spikes in and out of other plants.
‘The driveway shrubbery is the first thing you see as you come in the front gates, and though it’s useful for privacy, we’ve tried to add some clarity and shape to it by lifting the crowns of some of the larger shrubs like cotoneaster and Portuguese laurel,’ says Trish.
At the back the courtyards and terrace, once overgrown, are now sunny and ordered, fizzing with self-seeded Erigeron karvinskianus and home to collections of succulents and pots of choice salvias. The raised border below the terrace is a gauzy mix of grasses and herbaceous perennials that flower long into the autumn, including
Gaura ‘Karalee White’, penstemons and geraniums. Above the terrace, the lawn slopes steeply, dotted with fruit trees around which the grass is allowed to grow long in the late summer, mown through with a path that leads to a small vegetable patch.
After living in a quiet, rural spot in Cornwall for many years Trish and Jeremy appreciate the peace and serenity of their Somerset home, in spite of being in the centre of the village. ‘The garden has a lovely atmosphere, and not having to struggle with Cornish winds is a delight,’ says Trish. These days the Old Vicarage is less Hammer House of Horror and more horticultural heaven.