Easy-care borders
This easy-care garden is a peaceful retreat full of good-natured, low-maintenance plants. Head gardener Jane Page shares her favourites
Located at the far end of a remote and winding track, and blessed with beautiful views across open Cambridgeshire countryside, Ferrar House is a place of peace and beauty. “The garden is part of a Christian retreat,” explains Head Gardener Jane Page. “As we aren’t here to tend the garden every day, we rely on colourful plants with a long flowering period, tough plants that never need any cosseting and drought-resistant plants that don’t need regular watering.” This colourful but low-maintenenace garden contains red valerian (Centranthus ruber), geranium ‘Rozanne’, self-sown aquilegias, hylotelephium ‘Herbstfreude’, daylilies, Echinops ritro, santolinas,
fragrant rosemary and roses. “The roses are from a previous era and are at last looking healthy now they have plenty of manure around their feet,” says Jane. “I also love the bergenias, especially those whose foliage colours up in winter, some to a deep maroon, interspersed with snowdrops and daffodils underplanted with Alchemilla mollis.” Dating back to the 17th century, when a small religious community was formed at Ferrar House, it became the inspiration for American poet TS Eliot, who visited in 1936 before writing the last of his Four Quartets – Little Gidding. “The garden has something very special,” says Jane. “It’s a ‘thin place’ – a Celtic phrase referring to the
We rely on colourful plants with a long flowering period
SPIRITUAL AMBIENCE (clockwise from above left) The planting style is ‘controlled chaos’; Nicholas Ferrar restored the Church of St John the Evangelist when he founded a religious community here in the 17th century; a clipped hedge backdrop helps contain the exuberant planting; hemerocallis return each year; vigorous miniature climbing rose ‘Open Arms’
point where the spiritual and physical worlds meet. The garden features raised flowerbeds, extensive lawns, seating areas and a walled fruit and vegetable garden, whose crops are used to make meals for visitors and residents. “I was initially brought in to overcome the colourful chaos and neglect,” says Jane, who’s worked here since 2009. “This involved removing buried plastic sacks that were meant to keep weeds at bay. I’ve also lowered a hedge so the peaceful valley views become part of the garden. Since then, we’ve tidied, planted and developed the borders using a planting style we like to call ‘controlled chaos’!”
Jane is part of a regular team of two, plus a band of helpful volunteers. “I’m the chief weeder, planter, pruner and planner. My colleague Stephen Dalzell is the digger, edger, tidier and clipper, who’s also brilliant at clearing up at the end of the day.” A typical day can include weeding, tidying and trimming plants to establish shapely contours as you look across the herbaceous beds. “We’ve also been hard-pruning buddleias for a strong formative framework, clipping the numerous box plants and bay trees, and sharpening the lawn edges. Plus, we’re securing plants against wind damage; the wind can be a major problem here, as it whips across the valley, over the hedge and funnels around the side of the house, bending everything before it. Even so, quince ‘Vranja’ f lowers and fruits remarkably well.” Contrasting shapes and textures please the eye at every turn. “They’re aspects that we often put ahead of colour when choosing new plants,” says Jane. “One particular favourite is a line of sedums along our entrance wall. Their shapely ‘greyness’ always looks good at this time of year, especially interplanted with Tellima grandiflora ‘Rubra Group’, which has interesting copperyred foliage.” Jane’s plans to develop the garden include converting it into a pollinator conservation garden. “We want to include more insectfriendly plants and shrubs for different seasons of the year, so we can extend our welcome to wildlife.” One of these is Oemleria cerasiformis (Indian plum or oso berry), reliable favourites (clockwise from above) A riot of daylilies, alchemilla, geraniums and red-leaved persicaria; brick-built raised beds lead to the church; easy-care sedums and leucanthemum daisies; lowering the hedges has opened up the views; lavender and tanacetum (feverfew) with hollyhocks iNset Echinops ritro is a real bee magnet
We want more insectfriendly plants to extend our welcome to wildlife
which Jane says has a wonderful early spring scent and is very tough. “A suckering shrub, it produces small, white, almond-scented flowers in February and March, which attract butterflies and bees, followed by plumlike fruit on female plants,” she says. Jane also plans to extend the walled cut flower garden, using more annuals, perennials and flowering shrubs, such as Viburnum opulus ‘Roseum’. “Other new shrubs include Leycesteria formosa ‘Golden Lanterns’, Ulmus hollandica ‘Wredei’ (golden upright elm) and Lonicera periclymenum ‘Red Gables’ whcih will help to disguise the car park fence. There’s also a group of rugosa roses to make visitors feel more welcome as they enter. It’s such a gorgeous garden, we love working here – and it’s a real pleasure to share it.”