Garden of the Week
This beautiful plant-packed garden near Lulworth Cove in Dorset is set on a narrow, sloping plot that just seems to go on and on...
Heron’s Mead, Ron and Angela Millington’s garden, is about four or five miles inland from Lulworth Cove in Dorset, and it has been open for the National Garden Scheme for 13 years. There’s a wealth of planting behind their modest bungalow and, because it’s a narrow, sloping plot, it’s rather like entering the Tardis. It seems to go on and on!
Angela and Ron used to live in the bigger village of Wool, a stone’s throw away. Many years ago, Angela used to walk over to East Burton with her children, along the water meadows of the River Frome, so when this bungalow came up for sale the large garden and quieter location tempted them into buying it. That was 30 years ago.
“The bungalow was rundown and the garden was a wilderness, but we had masses of energy in those days,” Angela says. “There was an old mobile home halfway down and my teenage son used it as a den for many years, because it had a sink and a loo!” In time Ron replaced it with a more tasteful summerhouse, which the couple use to serve teas on open days.
“Lots of husbands who come to the garden end up having to make a summer house like ours, because their wives
love it,” Angela laughs. The derelict garden allowed them to start from scratch, although a surviving cherry tree still looks wonderful every May. With so much to do in the house, Ron and Angela decided to cover the bottom half of the garden with old carpets and sheets of corrugated iron.
“The idea was to discourage the weeds, but when we lifted the sheets of corrugated tin in the summer we found lots of slow worms sheltering underneath.” These legless lizards are great predators, particularly of slugs. That discovery has led Ron and Angela to garden with wildlife in mind. They’ve planted hawthorn hedges as a windbreak, because they’re not far from the coast, and these provide nesting sites and food for the birds. Recently Ron has been layering his own hedges, to stop them getting ‘gappy’ at the bottom.
“Our garden is totally organic,” Angela says. “We make nettle and comfrey tea to feed our plants. We also make compost and leaf mould and this is added to our sandy soil to stop it drying out too quickly.”
Ron has also made a hedgehog house close to the summer house, although there are plenty of suitable hibernation sites at the lower end of the garden because the couple allow their plants free rein.
In spring, the white narcissus ‘Thalia’ pushed up after the snowdrops, and periwinkle, or vinca, follows. These are shaded by
a fragrant, springflowering viburnum with apple-white roundels of flower. “The vincas are taking over,” Angela adds. They also open
their garden in March because they have so many hellebores. When Angela retired as President of the local Women’s Institute, the members gave her a gift voucher which she spent on a bug hotel. There’s a lot of insect life in this garden and some unusual butterflies and moths, including the green-washed fritillary and the hummingbird hawk-moth. “I do worry about the baby birds,” Angela says, “because we’re overrun with magpies and jackdaws. We’ve only seen one housemartin this year, there are no swifts, and we haven’t heard a cuckoo.”
They’re doing their bit though and there are two small ponds designed to attract wildlife. The lizard pond, which has a stone lizard fountain, is planted with moisture-loving perennials, such as candelabra primulas, small iris and sedges.
Their wilder pond has pond skaters and a resident grass snake, who regularly takes a cooling dip. “We also have toads and frogs, but this year’s frogspawn failed to hatch because we had snow in early March,” says Angela.
On the plus side there are plenty of damselflies and dragonflies taking to the air
this year, as the weather’s been so warm. The sunniest area is close to the house and there’s a pergola of roses and clematis, leading to a paved seating area. “We always make time to sit and enjoy our garden,” Angela explains. “I’m trying to cut down the workload and plant more shrubs, but I keep being seduced by perennials. I’ll be just like my mother – she was always asking for cuttings, right up until she was 88, and I’ll be the same!”
When you visit this flowerpacked Dorset garden, you’ll also get wildlife, too, and that’s why visitors keep coming back. They can’t quite believe their eyes!