Garden of the Week
Nestled in the Berkshire countryside, cottage garden meets prairie-style planting in this haven for flora and fauna alike
The garden at St Timothee is Sarah Pajwani’s family outdoor space, used for relaxing and socialising with friends. But Sarah loves gardening and, as she says: “I thoroughly enjoy being out there and actively working in the garden. I also like that it’s something of a haven for wildlife.” Sarah regularly gardens alongside birds, bees, butterflies, frogs, newts and other pond life, as well as larger visitors – foxes, deer, rabbits and voles. “The foxes, deer and rabbits did cause problems when getting plants established initially, but even these ‘pests’ are fine now and don’t really cause us any problems.”
The soil, which is very variable, was also something that had to be tackled when Sarah took over the garden. “It’s slightly alkaline throughout, some is heavy clay, some riddled with flint and chalk, and in one area the bedrock of chalk is only a few inches below the surface. But I soon learned to garden with it and plant what suits the soil type, including lime-tolerant and drought-tolerant plants.” But Sarah does add copious amounts of compost, including home-made, and mulches wherever possible.
The garden consists of gently flowing, colour-themed borders, planted for year-round interest. But there are lots of other exciting features, too. The garden wraps around the house, to the south of which is a large terrace and a big
circular lawn, edged with deep borders in shades of pinks and blues. Leading away from this is a series of curved paths to different areas, including a ‘mini orchard’, a more intimate area with conifers and planted in oranges, blues and creams, and a semi-formal wildlife pond. “The pond is probably my favourite feature because of the life it brings to the garden. It’s planted with waterlilies, irises, ranunculus, reeds and caltha, and becomes more informal towards the back, where I’ve planted hemerocallis, carex, epimediums, rodgersia and euphorbia.”
The mini orchard contains some lovely old apple trees and Sarah’s added more fruit, including plums and cherries. “We let the grass grow long here and just mow a circle for a table and chairs for outdoor eating.” This is left to be as natural as possible, but Sarah will remove thuggish thistles and has tried sowing some fresh seed.
The northern border is backed by big mature trees, including silver birch, a red oak, copper beech and white poplar. The border below is shady in summer and at its best from February to May with snowdrops, pulmonarias, wood anemones, bluebells, forget-menots and Papaver cambricum.
“The style of the garden is hard for me to describe, but I guess you could say it’s naturalistic. I want the garden to echo the natural world, feel soft, relaxed and welcoming. I use lots of ornamental grasses and perennials and also welcome selfseeding plants to help achieve this. These colonise gaps and help soften the look and feel of the borders.”
Each border has its own self-seeding plants. In the pink and blue border this is mainly nepeta; in the orange and blue border, it’s sisyrinchiums. Grasses, like Hordeum jubatum, are also allowed to self-seed. “I don’t want the garden to feel overly polished or primped but embrace and reflect the natural rhythm of the seasons and the planting of the surrounding countryside.”
Resilient planting
Also important to Sarah is that there’s plenty of interest right across the year that’s reasonably easy for her to manage. As a result, she uses perennials with a backbone of shrubs rather than lots of annuals. Dahlia tubers and tulip bulbs are left in the ground from year to year, too. Much of the planting ranges around tough, resilient hardy perennials, plus grasses. “Some of this planting verges towards prairie-style planting later in summer, but I also want more interest earlier in the year, including from classic cottage garden plants such as roses. So, you could call it cottage garden meets prairie!” This summer planting centres around strong perennials, such as echinops, salvias including ‘Amistad’ and S. uliginosa, echinaceas, achilleas and heleniums. “I didn’t really do a lot with dahlias, but I fell in love with ‘Arabian Night’ and have now added others for their colour from August onwards, and Japanese anemones add their charm later in autumn.”
At this time of year, the garden’s very much about dogwoods. “They’re the backdrop of several borders in various colours – red, yellow and orange. My favourite is definitely Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’, planted in two big sweeps behind the orange and blue borders. Because it has such a variety of shades, it looks alive and brings much needed warmth to the garden, even on the gloomiest of days.” Many of the dogwoods are underplanted with winter perennials, such as white Cyclamen coum under red stems and winter aconites under the yellow.
Looking good at all times of the year is the box-edged parterre. “We round the tops of our hedges, including those in the parterre, which I think still looks smart, but is much softer. We trim them early in the summer, while there’s still moisture in the soil and before the perovskia in the parterre starts flowering.” Sadly, like most gardeners, Sarah is experiencing problems with box tree caterpillars and, to a lesser degree, box blight. “I use pheromone traps and reluctantly spray them, but I also keep an eye out to spot for early signs of the caterpillars. Over time, I’ll be replacing the box with yew, euonymus and lonicera.”
The grasses look great too, especially the Stipa gigantea in the circle surrounding the lawn and the transparent ‘hedge’ of Calamagrostis acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’ that edges the path to Sarah’s tool shed. “February is also the time when the woodland border starts to come to life, planted with snowdrops and pulmonarias, and the crocuses are out.”