“My carpet of colour lasts all year”
Low-maintenence heathers offer evergreen appeal in this colourful sloping garden. Owner-designer Helen Thomas shows us its winter highlights
Low-maintenance heathers offer evergreen appeal in this colourful sloping garden
Winter interest is a key element in a well-designed garden. In this chic and colourful garden in the Surrey Hills, owner and designer Helen Thomas has taken an innovative approach – taming her tricky slope with a bright tapestry of winter heathers, hellebores and colourful cornus. “Our Edwardian house was originally two farm workers’ cottages that were converted into one,” explains Helen, who moved here with her husband Martin and family 23 years ago. “There were boundary hedges, mature trees and an old orchard, but very little else. I didn’t really start on the garden until the children were older, around 2008. I’d gone back to college to train as a garden designer, primarily so I could set up in business, but also so I’d have the skills to design our own garden here.” The house nestles into a hill, its back garden sloping away to the north. “I didn’t want to change the contours of the land,” says Helen. “We have a level area of hard landscaping all around the house, but for the rest of the garden I wanted to keep the natural undulations. The plot wraps right around the house, so there are different conditions in terms of light, shade and warmth. You can see various aspects of the garden from the house windows, but I wanted the planting to look cohesive and seamless – not as though you’re looking at two different gardens.”
I’ve worked with the garden’s natural undulations
Initially the couple used fencing and large shrubs to stop their young children falling down the slope. “But we couldn’t see anything from the house and the trees blocked the light,” says Helen. “So, when I designed the garden I replaced the fences and shrubs with low-maintenance plants that would tolerate our acidic soil and offer plenty of colour throughout the year.” Helen chose heather – a plant considered unfashionable by some – but here it’s used to stunning effect, block planted for a carpet of evergreen foliage. “I combined summer and winter-flowering heathers, so there’s colour pretty much all year round,” she explains. “For impact I’ve used 50-60 plants in eight different cultivars.
“For the first couple of years I had to keep on top of weeds but once the heathers knitted together they provided fabulous, weed-suppressing groundcover. I just trim them after they’ve flowered and brush off any fallen leaves. They’re perfect lowmaintenance plants for a slope.”
The heathers tumble down to a circular seating area that offers spectacular views across to the North Downs. “I didn’t want a garden that jarred with the landscape, so I planted hawthorns and birch to blend in,” she says. “As a result you can’t really see where the garden ends.”
From here you can also see beds filled with the skeletal remains of late-season perennials and columns of straw-coloured grasses, such as miscanthus. “I always keep the garden looking quite natural and not too manicured,” says Helen. “Although I will cut back plants such as persicarias, which can get a bit sludgy in winter, I try to leave seedheads and grasses until I see new growth appearing in March.”
Many of the apple trees in the orchard had died when Helen moved here, and the others dwindled soon after. “I’d read it wasn’t a good idea to replant apples in the same area, so I’ve made the orchard into a wildlife pond completely surrounded by colourful dogwoods. This spot gets lovely winter sunshine and the stems just light up like fireworks.”
Winter interest is woven throughout the garden. “Above our heather-clad slope there’s a Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’, which produces dainty white blossom in winter,” says Helen. “There’s a point where it looks quite dead, then all of a sudden it froths into life and looks like a snowball.” There are trees with colourful bark, such as gleaming white birches and Acer griseum with its cinnamon-coloured trunk; fragrant witch hazels and Viburnum carlesii, with its clusters of scented, white flowers; snowdrops emerging among drifts of burgundy-leaved bergenias; patches of vibrant pink Cyclamen coum and clumps of Helleborus argutifolius, which Helen loves for its lime green flowers and architectural foliage. She’s now planning projects for spring and summer. “I’m hoping to re-establish our meadow, which has been taken over by grasses,” says Helen. “The combination of the heather and the purple moor grass, which glows burnished orange in winter, is a tribute to my Yorkshire roots.” ✿
I planted hawthorns and birch so you can’t really see where the garden ends