A smashing spring spectacle This classic country garden is packed with inspiration for tulip lovers

Westwood House is a beautiful country garden planted with love. The care and attention taken to create something special is never better seen than in spring, when swathes of tulips create a crescendo of colour that manages to be both subtle and spectacular.

The first thing that owner Carolyn Trevor-Jones decided to do with the garden on moving in in 2001 was to create more shelter by planting trees and hedges, and a wall was built to give some protection from wind around the house. “When we first had friends visiting the house they would arrive, open their car doors and the wind would slam them back shut!” she explains. The garden then became something of a blank canvas because a land drain was installed around the house to protect it from water running off from surrounding fields.

But once these practical considerations had been carried out, it was time to add an exciting splash of spring flowers.

“I’ve always loved tulips,” says Carolyn. “I love colour in the garden and I plan the displays with my gardener Kay and it’s like two friends exploring their love of colour. We change the colour schemes each year.”

Every August, they plan the tulip display by getting out gluesticks, cutting tulip pictures from gardening magazines and catalogues and making a collage to work out planting combinations. “It’s like Blue Peter!” she laughs.

It's not only tulips that take centre stage at Westwood House. Narcissus ‘Thalia’ is naturalised in the lawn with orchard trees and is a late daffodil that usually flowers with the tulips – although this year it has bloomed around three weeks earlier than last year, meaning it appeared first.

The tulips are taken out every year, a couple of weeks after the open days, and most of them are re-used, dried and stored in an outbuilding. “It’s a bit of a luxury to dig them all up but it’s the only way of guaranteeing we don’t just have leaves the following year. If we didn’t lift them we

wouldn’t know where we were in terms of what we have for next year and what condition the bulbs are in,” explains Carolyn.

Her gardener Kay, a big fan of the late Gardeners’ World presenter Geoff Hamilton, and a long-standing devotee of his organic principles, says: “The tulips are lifted and put in crates to dry. Diseased ones are removed and the saved bulbs are planted again in December, or November for ones in pots. We’ve been organic here long before it became fashionable!”

The size of the plant is as important as the colour in terms of the display of tulips having the desired visual effect. “Height is really important and we try and grow tulips that all flower at the same time and aim for subtle colours. We don’t want it to look too ‘in your face’,” says Carolyn.

Evergreens play an important role in keeping the garden looking lush and full during tulip season, providing vital shelter and backdrops. With the exception of a large holly hedge, all the evergreens have been planted since 2001 and play a vital role in knitting everything together in spring.

The holly hedge provides privacy from the house. There is a lot of box but despite no signs of blight in the garden yet,

Carolyn is using yew for any new evergreen planting, just in case.

One of the secrets of success with the tulips is the dedicated way they are planted. Kay’s method is to plant them using a drill with an augur attachment. This is to ensure that the ground in which each bulb is planted is well cultivated. “I plant them deep and all the tulips are mulched with 15cm of homemade compost,” she says.

Once all the tulips are removed, Kay replaces the gaps in the borders and pots with summerflowering plants that are large enough not to look ‘lost’ next to the house, using dahlias, scabious and salvias among others.

But it’s the tulips that led to the garden being opened to the public for a special open day. “I enjoy walking through the garden in the evening and inspecting all the tulips, hoping they will either hurry up and open, or slow down so they flower in time,” says Carolyn.