“It’s a cottage garden with a formal twist”
This attractive farmhouse garden uses a mix of smart evergreens for shape and texture. Owner Penny Pritchard shows us around
This attractive farmhouse garden uses smart evergreens for shape and texture
Around a thatched farmhouse on a hillside near Axminster in east Devon is a garden exemplifying one of Penny Pritchard’s strongly held views on garden design: “Winter is a hugely important season, so I’ve included a lot of year-round structure and contrasting textures, such as solid box balls against the twiggy bare stems of acers.”
Cleave Hill is home to Penny and husband Andy, and, after designing her own plot so brilliantly, Penny now designs gardens for other people as part of her brother’s landscaping business.
“I grew up at Burrow Farm in nearby Dalwood, where my mother Mary created a 13-acre garden that’s still open to the public, so gardening is in my blood,” says Penny. “My brothers and sisters and I all had a little bit of garden to tend. Mine was beneath an old oak tree with beautiful buttress-like roots and lots of Cyclamen coum. I made the mistake of scattering bluebell seed, which were so successful they shaded out the cyclamen altogether.” Penny’s first garden was inspired by a trip to the Chelsea Flower Show in 1984.
“I devised a border with a yellow and blue theme,” she says. “I realised early on that it helps to narrow down your options because there are so many choices it can feel overwhelming. It was rather an ugly, unloved house and designing the garden really improved its appearance.” Penny and Andy moved to Cleave Hill in 1998, attracted by its handsome stone buildings and small parcel of land that was ideal for their two horses. “I remember when I first saw the garden view through the barn – it’s still one of my favourite vistas,” says Penny. “It’s important to have glimpses from one area to another so you’re tempted to explore. “When we first moved here, the garden was very bare with just a forsythia and a
Glimpses from one area to another means you’re tempted to explore
few grapevines – hardly any trees – so it felt open and exposed,” says Penny. “It took me a long time to decide which trees to plant because the background to the garden is so natural. It felt important to use species that sat comfortably against the surrounding landscape so I chose Crataegus persimilis ‘Prunifolia’ (broadleaved cockspur thorn) and Acer saccharum (sugar maple), both deciduous with good autumn colour.”
Andy, a stone mason, has restored the walls and dilapidated outbuildings, built retaining walls and laid paving to create a sheltered, sunken courtyard. “I’ve planted the courtyard with mixed evergreen and
deciduous shrubs and trees,” says Penny. “At its centre is Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Twisty Baby’ – a nice winter tree with pretty, contorted twigs. It rises up from a neat carpet of creeping thymes.”
Around the edge of the courtyard the glossy purple leaves of Pittosporum tenuifolium ‘Tom Thumb’ rub shoulders with the bold, glaucous, serrated foliage of Melianthus major. This borderline hardy evergreen shrub enjoys an extended life in this protected spot, while rose ‘Pink Flower Carpet’ continues to produce its dainty flowers until the hardest frosts. “The papery, translucent agapanthus and honesty seedheads look good through winter, together with the orange seedpods of Chinese lanterns, Physalis alkekengi, and bleached, buff remains of Stipa gigantea and silky Miscanthus nepalensis grasses,” says Penny. “Winter evergreen shrubs include variegated cherry laurel Prunus laurocerasus ‘Castlewellan’ and golden Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’.” The garden features light touches of formality, such as a line of topiaried box spheres interspersed by deep crimson heucheras and Liriope muscari, which produces spikes of mauve blue flowers in autumn that last well into winter. “The repeated box domes create a nice rhythm along the path,” says Penny. “The fact that the garden has more structure than a traditional cottage garden pays dividends in winter.” Beyond the lawn, a pair of standard hollies marks the entrance to the small farmhouse garden, decorated for Christmas with glittery baubles. “Though the house is very old, the place didn’t have a feeling of age, so we dressed it with old tin baths, watering cans and stone troughs to make it look older,” says Penny. “My vintage ‘gardenalia’ displays and terracotta urns stand out in winter, alongside the rusty, peeling gates I bought from a reclamation yard. I’ve also planted alpines in a stone trough under Magnolia loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’. In winter, it’s covered with luminous furry buds.”
Penny’s design style is inspired by Wollerton Old Hall in Shropshire and Gresgarth Hall in Lancashire, as well as her mother Mary. “Mum and I talk about gardens and plants a lot, but we garden in different ways,” says Penny. “I’m much keener on pruning than she is. I prune to keep shrubs the size I want them to be, reducing their height then removing stems from the base so they look natural. I have more herbaceous plants too.” Always brimming with new ideas, the next big thing on Penny’s wish list is a conservatory-cum-garden-room inspired by one at Bosvigo Gardens in Cornwall. “It would be the perfect place to enjoy the very last rays of sun, surrounded by ferns and a tinkling water feature. It would open up a whole new range of plants to grow too.” This beautifully detailed garden looks set to get even better. ✿
Having more structure than a traditional cottage garden pays dividends in winter