“I choose plants for colour and contrast”
This classic cottage garden in Oxfordshire is packed with cheerful tulips, early perennials and spring-flowering shrubs. Owner Sarah Randolph tells us its story
This relaxed hilltop garden has a bright and unruly charm in spring, when a riot of tulips burst into flower, partnered by pink and white hellebores, primulas and anemones. “It’s a classic English cottage garden,” says owner Sarah Randolph, who lives here with her husband David Rogers. “Although some plants aren’t quite in keeping, and it’s a bit ragged around the edges, it fits perfectly with our 17th-century thatched cottage.” When the couple first moved to this Oxfordshire idyll in 1978, the garden was all scrubland and jungle. “The lawn was a hayfield, with grass that came up to your waist in places,” says Sarah. “The box hedge was overgrown and the driveway was edged with lumps of concrete. “We had small children at the time so it wasn’t until about 1982 that I finally started creating the garden. I began by digging over our main curved border and putting plants in. I was pregnant at the time but I just got on with it, one step at a time. “There’s never been a design as such,” says Sarah. “I just familiarised myself with the typical layout of an English cottage garden and followed that. So, there’s an herbaceous border backed by a hedge, a lawn and shrubbery at the front, and a kitchen garden at the back.” Sarah’s a self-confessed ‘plantaholic’ and has built up her borders by trial and error. “Although we’re always told to plant in dramatic drifts, there’s simply not enough space in a small garden – not if you want to indulge your passion for a huge variety of plants,” she points out. “So, instead of planting in drifts I like to combine plants with contrasting colours and shapes – they can have a dazzling visual effect, even on a small scale.” Good examples of this include the dark foliage of purple-leaved berberis and cotinus that punctuate a sea of green shrubbery, and contrast with silveryleaved Buddleja alternifolia and variegated Cornus alternifolia ‘Argentea’.
“Complementary colours and shapes can create a similar eyecatching effect.” Early in the year, snowdrops, chionodoxa, camassia and daffodils light up the garden, followed by a succession of tulips. “The tulips range from the almostblack flowers of ‘Paul Scherer’ to deep raspberry-red ‘Jan Reus’ and orange ‘Barcelona’, bright pink ‘Mistress’ and white ‘Swan Wings’, which has fringed petal edges.” Sarah has a number of species plants as well, such as Tulipa clusiana chrysantha, bearing delicate bright yellow star-shaped flowers and T. sylvestris, with its beautiful lemonscented f lowers. Gladioli have naturalised in the herbaceous borders too, their deep magenta spikes of funnel-shaped flowers popping up in May. “The clumps are getting larger, but I leave them because they brighten up the borders when the tulips are going over,” says Sarah. The herbaceous borders shimmer in summer with the blowsy blooms of peonies, spires of delphiniums, tulbaghia, acanthus, aconitum, penstemon, geranium and lots of asters, with herbaceous clematis supported by obelisks. A bed of shrub roses at the front of the house looks divine in June when favourite cultivars come into bloom. These include ‘Marjorie Fair’, whose dark glossy foliage contrasts with deep pink single roses; ‘Ballerina’, with dainty white-centred f lowers; and climber ‘Summer Wine’, which has romantic coral-pink single flowers. “Next to our small orangery, my husband David built a dry stone wall of honey-coloured Cotswold stone,” says Sarah. “This holds back soil and creates a
raised platform for my herbs, Pieris japonica, alliums and Pyrenean cistus.” Sarah reclaimed the space at the back of the house bit by bit. “Here I’ve planted a natural hedge of field maple (Acer campestre); Sorbus cashmiriana – an unusual rowan with pretty white berries; and Acer negundo, which turns bright yellow later in the season,” she says. “In autumn, the purple leaves of cotinus, red hawthorn fruits, crab apples and berberis look wonderful backlit by the sun. In winter, the bright red stems of Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’ and C. sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’, light green C. sericea ‘Flaviramea’ and witch hazels provide seasonal colour.
“I was pregnant at the time but I just got on with it, one step at a time”
“I’ve learned not to underestimate the size to which shrubs can grow”
“I’ve since learned not to underestimate the size to which shrubs like these can grow within five years,” says Sarah. “Rather than plant them too close together, I now fill the gaps with shortlived plants until the shrubs have expanded to fill their spaces.” Like all the best cottage gardens, this is not just a picturesque plot full of flowers and fragrance; it’s productive too. “There’s a large vegetable plot and fruit garden where we grow everything really,” says Sarah. “There are potatoes, legumes, Brussels sprouts, kale, parsnips, carrots, onions, chard and squash. In the greenhouse we grow tender veg such as aubergines, cucumbers and green peppers. Our three dessert apple trees and two cooking apple trees provide a generous harvest from late August, and our fruit cages are home to red and black currants, gooseberries, raspberries, blueberries and tayberries. We’ve been completely self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables for the past 30 or 40 years.”