Garden of the Week
This open and sweeping plot in rural Welsh countryside has big, deep borders filled with plants that have memories attached to them
When Rosemary Clarke and her late partner, David Harbinson, first arrived at their rural Welsh cottage 25 years ago, gardening was the last thing on their minds.
“I used to be the chairman of the Donkey Breed Society and I’ve had donkeys of my own for 50 years,” says Rosemary. “We came here with 11 donkeys, so it was really the stables and the land I was after, but, with time and fewer donkeys, we needed less grazing and the garden just gradually evolved.”
Originally a farm cottage, the oldest part of the house dates from 1870 and, although Rosemary and David met many local people whose families had used it in the past, they found no evidence of any gardening activity.
“It was really strange,” says Rosemary. “It was a red brick cottage, a door and two windows, like a child would draw, but absolutely no garden whatsoever! Not so much as a head of rhubarb or a clump of daffodils. Absolutely nothing but one self-set Rhododendron ponticum – and I pulled that out!”
The donkey population is now down to just two – Darcy and Pocket Rocket, who are mother and son – and the garden has become quite extensive. “Although it’s still too big to manage without borrowing the local farmer’s sheep,” says Rosemary.
The site is open and sweeping, with long views across the surrounding countryside. Big, deep borders have a permanence and solidity due to a backbone of perennials and shrubs, while a secret area for the grandchildren is accessed via steps through
some particularly dense bushes. The natural topography contributes gentle slopes and there’s also a sizeable natural pond, which is home to a lively population of dragonflies.
“The garden is based on plants that come back every year, but the design wasn’t really planned, as such,” says Rosemary. Yet, in many ways, this is an asset, enabling her to embrace serendipity and fortune.
“The big, cerise peonies came from my great grandmother; they’ve moved with us five times,” she says, “and I used to be a volunteer cook for a senior citizens' group. Each week people would come for food and company and they would often bring me a pot of something from their garden to say thank you. I didn’t know what it was, but I would plant it anyway.”
Thus, the garden is full of plants that have memories attached. Plants that came from friends, relatives and through the kindness of strangers; the sort now embodied in the help that Rosemary receives to complete those gardening tasks that her arthritis would otherwise make impossible.
“I’m not very into bedding plants, but I do lots of containers and baskets as that helps bring colour up close to the house. And you can do them sitting down, which is good if you suffer from a debilitating condition,” she says. And, at this time of year, when all is being cut back and divided, the
ability of perennials to survive and regenerate appeals enormously. “I like plants that'll suffer fools,” she laughs. “The ones that don’t need much skill and will still come back!”
Rosemary is acutely aware of how her garden sits in the landscape; with the Berwyn Mountains to one side and a long view out towards Brecon on the other. But recent local forestry work has changed more than the view.
“Felling the trees has altered the water table dramatically,” she says. “It was heavy soil to start with but now it’s absolutely saturated! I could see the visual impact of the tree felling, and that will diminish over the next few years as they’ve replanted with native species, but it didn’t dawn on me the extent to which it would alter the surrounding environment; how much water trees suck up from the ground in their daily existence and how very important they are in managing excess rainfall.”
For Rosemary, her garden is a place of tranquillity and peace, somewhere to contemplate, enjoy small kindnesses, and even to address the environmental problems of the world in microcosm. “I like it when people come on open days, you can see them sitting on the seat, just taking in the view, lost in their thoughts. As my son always says: "This is a garden that's good for the soul!’”