One step at a time

On her journey from novice gardener to professional designer, Bella Stuart-Smith has created a multifaceted, ever-evolving garden at her home in Hertfordshire

Incremental adjustment, undaunted experimentation and increasing expertise are the hallmarks of a private garden in Hertfordshire where owner Bella Stuart-Smith cut her teeth as a designer

Wandering round Pie Corner on an early summer’s day, slanting sun highlights a collection of quirky topiary and formal hedges. Bees buzz lazily from one mound of lavender to the next, past beds fizzing with geraniums and alliums, foxgloves and salvias. It is all the work of Bella Stuart-Smith, who started with the ultimate blank canvas – no garden, no house – and went on to create a perfect country estate in miniature. When Bella and her lawyer husband Jeremy were drawn away from London with two small children and the promise of building a new home on inherited land, they were joining a very exclusive community. Most of Jeremy’s family live in this magical corner of Hertfordshire and, as their surname suggests, they are all exceptional gardeners.

Brother-in-law Tom’s world-famous Barn Garden is just down the lane, and Serge Hill, long-time home of Tom and Jeremy’s parents but now occupied by their sister

Kate, can just be glimpsed from Bella’s drawing-room windows.

“Starting from scratch here was rather daunting,” says Bella. “I had done next to no gardening before we arrived, but everyone was terribly nice and helped with initial design ideas and structures.”

The first step, in 1988, was to demolish two derelict cottages and fill their existing compact footprint with a new house. Bella and Jeremy commissioned “a minimalist cube in the tradition of Sir John Soane”, with terraces on three sides, taking in glorious views over rolling countryside to the east. “We put in some hedges and planted a couple of

borders, so it didn’t feel quite so stark, but by that point we had pretty much run out of money and the garden didn’t get much attention for a while.”

As her family gradually grew from two to four children, Bella began adding to her garden, instinctively working out from the house as time and resources allowed. “There was no grand plan, even now I’m always changing things around, but there are unifying details. I have a lot of blue- and lavender-coloured flowers, partly because I love them, but also because I’m thrifty, so I propagate from what I have and end up with lots of the same things to spread around.”

The topiary pieces on the terraces started out as low hedging. In time they were replaced by a formal rectangular pool, gravel paths, mounds of rosemary and lavender, and large beds stuffed with Euphorbia palustris, Geranium ‘Philippe Vapelle’ and masses of peonies, which look wonderful at this time of year.

Today, the yew and hornbeam hedges have a mature heft, anchoring the wisteria-cloaked house to its setting and defining the different sections of this now extensive garden. To the east of the house, the hedges flank a rough lawn (soon to be seeded with wildflowers) and frame the view past a flock of black Hebridean sheep to a huge wellingtonia, growing in the garden at Serge Hill, which pokes incongruously above a distant stand of native woodland.

To the south of the house is a smaller, more formal garden with a swimming pool framed by low, cloud-pruned hedges. Four Cupressus sempervirens ‘Pyramidalis’ have anchored this garden for decades, but two large beds framing semi-circular steps at the far end of this area are being constantly tweaked and enlarged.

“I can’t help it,” says Bella. “Whenever I have the space and time I find myself adding extras.” As well as enlarging existing beds, over the years she has steadily added whole

There was no grand plan, even now I’m always changing things around. Beds are constantly being tweaked, but there are unifying details

I have a lot of blue- and lavender-coloured flowers, partly because I love them, but also because I’m thrifty and propagate them from what I already have

new gardens, including a beautifully maintained vegetable garden (where love-in-amist and Ammi majus have self-seeded freely ever since Bella grew the flowers for her daughter’s wedding, more than two years ago), and a gravel garden with the free drainage and protection necessary for treasured Melianthus major, Knautia macedonica and Molopospermum peloponnesiacum.

In the remains of the former cottage garden, Bella has created a wild rosarium, including the dainty-flowered Rosa Kew Gardens (= ‘Ausfence’) and the highly fragrant white rambling rose Rosa ‘The Garland’ underplanted with foxgloves and cow parsley, leading to a woodland clearing where rough stools, carved from the stumps of felled sycamores, are drawn up around an open fire.

Most recently, Bella cleared an overgrown conifer plantation to give her the space and slightly acid soil necessary to explore a growing interest in rhododendrons, azaleas and hydrangeas. “I am really not safe on a visit to Pan-Global Plants nursery,” she says, pointing out a Hydrangea heteromalla so choice that it has only a registration number, not a name.

Bella has come a long way since she arrived at Pie Corner as a novice gardener. She has taken a degree in garden history, chaired the Hertfordshire Gardens Trust and qualified as a professional garden designer, but her greatest achievement remains her own glorious garden, which will never quite be finished.

USEFUL INFORMATION

I can’t help it. Whenever I have the space and time I find myself adding extras… I am really not safe on a visit to Pan-Global Plants nursery

Address Pie Corner, Millhouse Lane, Bedmond, Hertfordshire WD5 0SG.

Open The garden will open for the National Garden Scheme on 18 June, 5pm-8pm. Admission £5. Please note that all tickets must be booked online in advance at ngs.org.uk

Above In the south-facing pool garden, hummocks of clipped box form a cloud-pruned hedge along the terrace. At the end furthest from the house, four Cupressus sempervirens ‘Pyramidalis’ and more topiary frame semi-circular steps leading up to a grass path where the sculpture of a deer appears to be running to safety. Right Bella has a fondness for purple, blue and lavender flowers, showcased to great effect in this deep bed where she has combined Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’, various penstemons and Amsonia orientalis with lime-green Alchemilla mollis and the pale-pink pompoms of Paeonia lactiflora ‘Shirley Temple’.

Opposite, top The sheltered Gravel Garden includes Melianthus major with its greygreen pinnate leaves, the crimson flowerheads of Knautia macedonica and bold clumps of golden-yellow Allium flavum. The grass Stipa tenuissima selfseeds happily and must be controlled. Opposite, bottom Against a backdrop of clipped box and columns of mature cypress, the ever-enlarging beds in the Swimming Pool Garden are filled with lavender and the deep-purple Salvia x sylvestris ‘Mainacht’, which contrasts with zingy, yellow Achillea ‘Moonshine’ and the pale daisies of Cephalaria gigantea, waving on their wiry stems. Above Roses in the Dell Walk include Rosa ‘The Garland’, its pretty, soft pink echoed by the flouncy pompoms of Paeonia lactiflora ‘Festiva Maxima’. The purple-leaved smoke bush, Cotinus ‘Grace’ forms a harmonious link between the two, enlivened by violet foxgloves.

The need to cultivate large quantities of vegetables has dwindled now that Bella’s children have grown up and moved away, and these days the kitchen garden is increasingly ornamental. Soft-blue love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) pops up everywhere since Bella grew the flowers for her daughter’s wedding more than two years ago.