Fresh ideas

Building on a design by Tom Stuart-Smith, the blossoming talents of David Richter and Beth Marshall have made their mark on an Oxfordshire garden

Gardeners David Richter and Beth Marshall are making their mark on an Oxfordshire garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith

Drifts of camassia mingle through the yew border to great effect

The Chiltern Hills, a chalk escarpment that at its highest elevations passes for dramatic in the context of southeast England, peters out gradually as it runs southwest towards the Thames. Atop one of these gentler undulations near Henley-on-Thames sits a private garden and estate where David Richter and Beth Marshall arrived to take up positions as head gardeners three years ago, having both graduated from the Kew Diploma in Horticulture. Although the combination of gardening on chalk and a hilltop exposure sounds difficult, the depth of soil above the chalk is quite variable across the estate and as such is quite fertile, if very sharply drained, while various woodlands help to buffer the wind. Before the couple arrived, the owners had engaged the garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith to redesign the garden, in concert with a re-build and extension of the existing farmhouse in 2009. Tom took the opportunity to establish a large wildflower meadow, and several flowerbeds about the house, but his most important intervention was to build a large, walled garden, enclosing a greenhouse for fruit and propagation, vegetable beds, some existing, venerable, but still vigorous, apple trees and substantial flower borders. Although Tom is no longer directly involved in the day-to-day running of the garden, it still bears the strong stamp of his design in terms of the layout and structural planting, while the development of the herbaceous plantings has been devolved, with Tom’s blessing, to David and Beth.

The entrance to the property is low-key, a long farm-track skirted by woods on one side, and a substantial wildflower meadow on the other. This was established by sowing during the 2009 re-development, with a layer of topsoil stripped from the surface to reduce soil fertility. This has no doubt contributed to its current success, with 50 species of wildflower now represented, without counting grasses. The house is sited rather discreetly in its three-acre plot and is mostly invisible on the approach. Visitors arrive at a parking area surrounded by barn-like buildings and cars are kept well away from the front of

the house. Views to the south and east of the property are preserved fairly unadorned – there is a pair of borders separated by a low, knapped flint wall (flint is a traditional building material in the area – indeed there are the remains of flint pits in the nearby woods), an intimate courtyard area enclosed by domestic buildings, and a remarkable specimen strawberry tree ( Arbutus x andrachnoides), a venerable, contorted multi-stem, outside the front of the house.

By far the largest intensively gardened area is the three-quarters-of-an-acre walled garden. This adjoins the parking area and beckons visitors invitingly on to its crunchy gravel paths. There are extensive vegetable beds, backed up by an impressive greenhouse nestled against the south-facing wall. Although much of the space is given over to ornamental plantings, the owners inherited a large number of old apple trees that they felt bound to retain, and were incorporated into Tom’s design. These populate almost all of the ornamental section of the walled garden and lend the area the character of a kitchen garden.

The vegetable garden is predominantly Beth’s domain. Sparked by the owner’s interest, she began to research gardening for health. The plot became a testing ground as Beth experimented with planting ideas to maximise the health benefits of growing your own. Vegetables are raised organically, and there is also a focus on maximising diversity of produce during any one season. So cut-and come-again crops are preferred to glut-inducing rows of hearting cabbages. Various exotic vegetables have been adopted, such as the Andean tuber-bearing daisy Smallanthus sonchifolius and herby salads high in polyphenols such as Perilla frutescens. An important part of her regime is to expose plants to a degree of environmental stress, by limiting irrigation, and cutting back on fertilisation, which triggers plants to produce a greater quantity of the phytochemicals that help to nourish gut microbes.

Almost all of the rest of the planting in the walled garden resides under apple trees. The most ancient of their branches, where the trunk splits, grow in one plane and begin to branch rather low, leading David to surmise that although they have

David capitalises on the moment the apple trees are in blossom

now grown more expansively, they were once trained as espaliers. The trees define this part of the garden and give it a great part of its charm, but they have presented challenges. Some of them have had to be pruned rather ruggedly, removing up to half of their branches in order to let through more light. Nevertheless, parts of the beds remain quite heavily shaded in the summer. Because the clear trunks of the trees are rather short, even perennials of a medium height conflict with the lower branches and stifle the view across the garden.

David’s instinctive response was to capitalise on the moment when the apple trees were in blossom and concentrate on providing a knock-out spring display in these beds. At this early point of the year, before the trees are in leaf, plenty of light reaches the ground, moisture is still in abundant supply, and conditions are perfect for bulbs and other woodland perennials to thrive. A host of tulips now populate the beds. Among these, ‘Shirley’ mimics the softened pinky-white of the apple blossom, but the majority offer bold suffused colours, from the vivid orange of ‘Ballerina’, to dark purple ‘Recreado’. Early spring-flowering perennials, including frothy Tiarella cordifolia, perennial honesty and the arching mounds of Lamprocapnos spectabilis ‘Alba’, help to soften the clashes of brighter colours, along with an abundance of green foliage from emergent, later-f lowering plants. Pale blue is also a great healer of aching eyes, and impressive drifts of the tall Camassia leichtlinii subsp. suksdorfii mingle throughout the yew border to great effect. It is an ebullient display of spring colour, but one that is anchored by the sculptural solidity of sinuous apple trunks and some weighty topiary in box and yew.

In the time that David and Beth have been at the garden they have managed between them to re-invigorate a substantial garden and raise two small children. They make a great team.

By far the largest area is the walled garden, beckoning visitors on to its gravel paths

PHOTOGRAPHS MARIANNE MAJERUS

The yew border, backed by a long yew hedge, is north facing, and in heavy shade later in the year when the apple trees fully leaf out. In spring, however, the beds are awash with colour; Blue Camassia leichtlinii subsp. suksdorfii marches down the border alongside tulips ‘Jan Reus’, ‘Shirley’, ‘Valery Gergiev’, ‘Negrita’ and ‘Recreado’. Perennials, such as Bergenia ‘Morgenröte’ and Tiarella cordifolia, provide additional colour.

A gravel path, leading to the front of the house, marks one side of the apple beds, while a row of large yew topiary shapes, known as the skittle beds, because of the yews’ shape, mark the other. Surrounding the trees, purple Fritillaria persica ‘Adiyaman’, and tulips ‘Havran’ and ‘Prinses Irene’ mix with purple and white honesty, Lunaria annua, and the burgeoning foliage of the massive Conium maculatum.

The vegetable garden, with its hazel wigwams, has become Beth’s domain. Here she organically grows a wide range of vegetables, such as the exotic yacón ( Smallanthus sonchifolius), an Andean, tuber-bearing daisy, and salads high in polyphenols – all grown for their health benefits. The large glasshouse is home to a fan-trained peach and a vine as well as offering the couple space for propagation.