Herbal essence
Formality meets practicality in a contemporary country garden close to the coast designed by Thomas Hoblyn
Formal overtones give structure and interest to this kitchen and herb garden in Suffolk
IN BRIEF
What A contemporary country garden with productive vegetable plot and herb parterre. Where Suffolk. Size Five acres. Soil Acidic, sandy, free- draining soil that is naturally poor but constantly improved. Climate Dry, rarely frosty, and windy, but sheltered by a belt of mature trees. USDA 9.
Thomas Hoblyn thinks of Stephanie Harrod’s garden as a sheltered, peaceful island right on the edge of the blustery Suffolk coast. “She is the hardest-working person I know,” he says as he describes the evolution of the garden that belongs to the driving force behind the company Harrod Horticultural. “The brief was to provide somewhere to relax but Stephanie wanted a place that would provide opportunities to test products.”
Thomas was introduced to Stephanie ten years ago at the RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show when he won his first Gold Medal (he has gone on to design six award-winning Chelsea gardens). Using plants from his Hampton Court show garden, he created a relaxed, informal border around the circular pond in her Suffolk garden. “I wanted something contemporary, but it had to work with the traditional layout of the rest of the garden. I wanted herbs and formality and for it to look good all year round,” Stephanie recalls. Thomas introduced lacy white umbels of Selinum wallichianum, airy Sanguisorba officinalis with its tiny claret heads on wiry stems and the unusual bright-pink spires of Lactuca bourgaei. By the time Stephanie built an extension to her early 20th-century house, she knew who to turn to transform the space around it. “This part of the garden was a jungle,” says Thomas. “Three wonderful Scots pines stuck up through a layer of invading Rhododendron ponticum. The garden needed to look good both from the low level of the new indoor swimming pool and from the much-used veranda on the first floor of the new extension.”
His first move was to create a strong structural framework, using yew and box, which will be clipped to form a smart, tiered hedge when the yew is 1.2m high and the box has reached 80cm. He loves the hedge’s contrasting darker and lighter greens and has ensured that there is a third, even brighter, green nearby when the rectangle of low-stilted hornbeam – an element that adds handsome architectural heft to the design – comes into leaf.
A herb parterre – a sort of contemporary knot garden made of sinuous loops of santolina, berberis, lavender, teucrium and salvia – establishes an aromatic, richly coloured tapestry on either side of a clean-lined, dark-grey aluminium pergola by Harrod Horticultural. The spaces in between the parterre’s permanent planting are filled with swathes of herbs, such as borage and parsley, and the dramatic beetroot-red leaves of Atriplex hortensis var. rubra. Along one side is Stephanie’s new pride and joy: a stretch of free-standing peach frames, designed with input
from Thomas – for which she has created smart, removable protective covers from UV-stabilised fabric. “The results are stunning; we had the most delicious peaches and nectarines last year.”
Simply planted rectangles of the lush, lime-green grass Hakonechloa macra, punctuated with the huge leaves of the exotic-looking Tetrapanax papyrifer ‘Rex’, draw the eye towards the monumental stand of three Scots pines. These all-green borders create a calm transition between the herb parterre and the softly planted borders around the new terrace leading out from the swimming pool. The terrace is paved in the same warm grey limestone that was used around the pool. “The colour was important as it needs to feel welcoming but work with the iroko decking, which will silver over time.”
For the borders, Thomas started with his favourite combination of Prussian blue ( Nepeta racemosa ‘Walker’s Low’), burnt orange ( Kniphofia ‘Tawny King’) and lime green ( Alchemilla mollis). This long-lasting understorey is home to an exhilarating display of pink tulips in spring (the rich-pink ‘Royal Acres’ and the paler ‘Montreux’), followed by the luscious, crimson-f lecked peony ‘Festiva Maxima’ in early summer.
Thomas helped Stephanie design the well-ordered kitchen garden where one of Harrod Horticultural’s original pergola designs is now a lovely dense arch of pears against a clipped yew hedge. This is a creative laboratory that never stands still. Both Thomas and Stephanie assure me that it is a project that is not yet complete.