“Silver plants make our garden shine” This colourful coastal garden, set in a former quarry, offers plenty of planting challenges
This colourful coastal garden is set in a former quarry, offering plenty of planting challenges. Owners Suzanne and Stuart Nutbeem share its story
Located on a hill above the idyllic seaside town of Swanage in Dorset, this pretty garden is full of unusual perennials, shrubs and grasses, including cacti and air plants, plus plenty of nectar-rich flowers for the local bees and butterflies. Yet all is not quite as it seems…
“It’s set in the hollow of a former quarry,” explains owner Suzanne Nutbeem, who moved here with her husband Stuart 14 years ago. “So, the garden is about 20ft below the house and our only view of it is from directly above. When you’re down in the garden you have to look up to see the house.”
Although the bottom of the hollow is f lat, like “a kind of square bowl”, its sides are terraced into steps held back by the
famous local Purbeck limestone, which was once quarried right here in the garden. “It’s about the size of the centre court at Wimbledon,” says Suzanne. “There’s plenty of space for planting but the soil was very poor and lumpy.
“When we came here the bottom was laid to lawn – too wet in some areas and dry in others, while the terraces were rubbly and free-draining. The wind coming off the sea howled around the house and battered the plants.”
“We dug out the rubble with a mattock and put some decent topsoil into the terraces,” says Suzanne. “Once we’d done that, I spent about five years working out
The bottom was laid to lawn – too wet in some areas and dry in others
how to use the garden. At first, I put everything in the wrong place. I’d put things in, look at them from the house above, realise they looked awful then go back down and rearrange them.”
Although in her previous home Suzanne favoured the cottage-garden style, she soon realised this garden called for a bit more drama. “I started off putting in seaside plants,” she says. “The trouble is, I found them all a bit dull! So I transferred the pines, palms and yuccas to pots, and began to focus on drought-tolerant Mediterranean plants instead.”
Now the garden is filled with fragrant herbs and colourful cosmos, thalictrum, willowy Verbena bonariensis and perovskia. “The silver foliage from olives, hebes and astelia lighten up the dark grey Purbeck stone,” says Suzanne. “I’ve also used tall trees and shrubs that work well in relation to the house, and plants like crocosmia and cordyline that burst upwards and outwards.
“I’ve learned that foliage matters just as much as the flowers, and when it comes to choosing plants for shape and colour, I always look at the leaves first. I can’t do the tropical, big-leaved thing here as they’d get torn to shreds by the wind, but at least we never get frost in the hollow, it just passes right across the top.”
In spite of all the challenges, Suzanne has enjoyed the transformation process. “It’s been a lovely garden to do,” she says. “It’s like a little secret world. People come down the alley to the side and just say ‘Wow!’ when they see it.”
And, while husband Stuart always says he’d have ‘preferred a piece of concrete painted green’, he’s been highly instrumental in the transformation. “It’s a very good partnership,” says Suzanne. “I’m a cut-and-chuck sort of gardener, pruning out all the undergrowth while Stuart does all the picking up afterwards!
“People seem to buy plants that are small and pretty and expect them to stay that way, but you have to keep pruning and trimming to keep everything in check. Gardening should be joyful. I like to treat my garden as an adventure and see where it takes me next!” ✿
I’ve learned that foliage matters just as much as the flowers