Garden against a wall of green
With jaw-dropping views of the surrounding countryside, the owner of this colourful Durham plot has strived t to keep them unobscured
Perched at 198m (650ft), below the dam wall of Tunstall Reservoir spillway to the north with jaw-dropping views of the Waskerley Valley to the south, Warrenfell has a remarkable location. When Fran Toulson moved here in 2012, she was determined to cash in on the surrounding aspect.
“I’ve taken great pains not to obscure the backdrop,” she says. “The view of the rolling countryside is like a wall of green that makes the garden seem so much bigger.”
Her stone-built, semidetached house dates from 1880 and the garden extends around three sides – east, south and south west. But when she moved in, conifer hedging on the south boundary obscured those marvellous views.
Fran managed to have a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) lifted on one diseased oak, which she subsequently removed together with 18 conifers that she took out “with a twin cab and a tow-bar”. She has since planted another oak on the north boundary and
put in metal-stake estate fencing along the southern boundary. After carefully measuring the plot and making detailed plans, Fran spent the first 16 months addressing the hard landscaping and installing arches and raised beds in the kitchen garden, but “managed to hold off on the planting”.
Then in 2015, she erected the central arbour and built her rockery, but before she began planting, Fran carefully sourced the best plants for each space, using dwarf varieties where possible “so I could squeeze more in”. She made a list and stuck to it rigidly. “I was determined not to impulse buy,” she states.
“I wanted colour for as long as possible,” she explains, and now has something in flower in every month. “From February, Iris reticulatata really zings in the rockery, along with the hellebores and snowdrops.”
Fran loves scented plants and included philadelphus, daphnes and witch hazel for winter interest and perfume. However, it’s in summer that her garden is f full of colourful blooms and delicious scent.
“Roses were a must,” she says. “People say they’re a lot of work but I enjoy pottering among them and deadheading them in summer.” The arbour is divided into four colour-themed beds – white, pink, red and apricot – and Fran chose the most scented varieties she could find.
She also established a peony bed with 25 different varieties, many of them scented and three “absolutely stunning Itoh hybrids”. One unusual variety, ‘Green Halo’, is blooming for the first time this year, much to her excitement.
There’s also a blue, purple and white border, packed with Aconitum sachalinense yezoense, eryngium and thalictrum and another overflowing with reds and pinks, such as spiraea and crocosmia. Her favourite scabious and sweet peas are dotted around wherever she can find space, and climbing
wisteria, honeysuckle and 18 clematis create a wall of colour and scent. “When Clematis
montanaana ‘Odorata’ is in full bloom, it’s like walking past a huge bucket of vanilla ice cream!” she laughs.
Flowering shrubs were placed along the eastern boundary and, thanks to Fran’s careful research, she’s accommodated a lilac.
Syringa microphylla ‘ Superba’ reaches just 1.75m (5ft 6in) tall, and although its scented pink flowers are small, it blooms in both May and August.
In her kitchen garden, Fran sought out the best varieties to maximise production from her 10 raised veg beds, including one devoted to herbs, another to asparagus and two to rhubarb, cane and bush fruit. “I bought fruit trees on dwarf rootstocks and trained them as espaliers, fans and cordons,” she says.
There are now six apples, three pears, two plums, two cherries and a greengage, along with a loganberry trained along her flower garden fence.
And it’s not just the flowers that are beautiful to look at. “The birdlife is fantastic, too!” Fran says. Her tally of birds seen in the garden and the valley beyond currently stands at 80 different species, including osprey, black grouse, curlews and a kingfisher.
She has recently established a meadow and extended her alpine garden, but by planning her garden so that it wasn’t too labour intensive and putting just the right plants in the right place, Fran can now enjoy “just pottering around and tweaking different areas”.