“We love to garden with nature”
Roses, ferns and colourful shrubs fill the borders of this plant-packed paradise, where caterpillars are allowed free reign. Rosie and Gordon Farr show us around
Nature and nurture work hand in hand in this plant-packed paradise in Buckinghamshire
Nature and nurture work hand in hand in this sunny garden in Buckinghamshire. Hedges are left to become shaggy in spring, giving the fledgling birds plenty of time to fly the nest, while caterpillar food plants are allowed to self-seed where they please. “Wildlife is very important to us,” says owner Rosie Farr, who lives here with her husband Gordon. “We both like to work with nature rather than battle against it. Plants are given space to breathe rather than being immediately cut back and tidied up. Last year I had to explain to visitors that I’d deliberately left the hedges unpruned to appreciate the fresh new growth. I’m not keen on over-tidying in winter and tend to leave work on the borders until March, when new spring growth is imminent.” Lush ferns give the garden a woodlandy look. “When I was a child, the lovely old lady who lived next door had a fern in her garden LITTLE DETAILS (clockwise from top left) Aeoniums and sedums adorn this sunny wall; yellow alchemilla is a robust self-seeder, tumbling over a path that leads to a small pond and a planting of Iris delavayi, Rubus tricolor and ivy ‘Sulphur Heart’; pink and white lychnis; clematis ‘Piilu’; Gordon built this trellis feature; erigeron with Campanula carpatica INSET Shrub rose ‘The Fairy’
that I’d always adored,” says Rosie. “My interest in ferns grew from there and now I have my own fernery. I’ve planted them in pots and in the borders too. They don’t ask for much and there’s a wide variety of foliage shapes and textures.” Rosie bought the house in 1986, attracted by its long garden. “I didn’t realise quite how big the garden was until I moved in,” she says. “Because it was so large I raised lots of the plants from seed so I wouldn’t be short of colour. Now I use the greenhouse mainly for overwintering dahlia tubers and other tender plants. “Dahlias are especially good for summer colour,” says Rosie. “I also grow roses,
“I raised lots of the plants from seed so I wouldn’t be short of colour”
clematis and hardy geraniums, with petunias and pelargoniums in pots for summer. “Foliage is another good source of colour – we’ve got Podophyllum versipelle ‘Spotty Dotty’, self-sown silver eryngiums and bronze and purple heucheras. We’ve also planted purple Cotinus coggygria ‘Royal Purple’ with a golden Berberis thunbergii ‘Aurea’ underneath, which looks really bold and dramatic.” The hard landscaping is all created by Rosie’s husband Gordon, a retired entomologist. “When he left school he did an apprenticeship as a bricklayer, which has proved really useful,” she says. “The garden was just flowers to start with but when I met Gordon we were able to combine his hard landscaping skills and my love of plants to create the garden we have now. He’s built paths, pergolas, trellis, walls and raised beds – he’s got a very good eye.” “There was no grand plan,” says Gordon. “The garden has evolved and gone through many phases, with new projects replacing old features over time. People say our garden is like a Russian doll in the way it unfolds as you go along.” The soil is clay but stony and relatively free-draining. “We’ve planted up a sunny Mediterranean border to exploit the conditions,” says Rosie. “It’s one of several parts of the garden that we’ve decorated with old signs and pots. We go to auctions to track down interesting salvage pieces for the garden. Gordon’s always on the lookout for old railways signs.” Gordon’s other main passion is caterpillars. “My father had an allotment and I remember him bringing home a cabbage that looked like he’d shot it! He said he’d give me a threepenny bit if I could take all the caterpillars off it. It’s probably what got me interested in becoming an entomolgist.” Gordon has been breeding caterpillars for decades and has set aside a special greenhouse for them. “I give talks to gardening groups who tell me that they all love butterflies but not the caterpillars. Alas, you can’t have one without the other!” Plants such as holly, buckthorn and honesty have won a place in the garden because they’re perfect food plants for
caterpillars. “Brimstone butterflies love feeding on buckthorn, while orange tips prefer to feed on honesty seedpods then lay their eggs on the plant. I move the pupae into the greenhouse when they’re almost full size to protect them from birds and wasps. “We grow nasturtiums among our raspberries to encourage caterpillars too,” says Gordon. “Some are nibbled but you’ve got to give and take when it comes to wildlife.” This plant-packed paradise certainly seems resilient enough to handle a few hungry guests. The borders are full to the brim, oozing with a summer abundance that most gardeners yearn for.
“People say our garden is like a Russian doll in the way it unfolds as you go along”