Haven of soft flowing colour
In a peaceful dell deep in the Essex countryside, a couple have created a sanctuary filled with shape and movement in a soft summer palette
SET AMID WOODLAND and fields, on the edge of the Stour Valley, sits the Old Vicarage. Located away from the road, in a quiet village deep in the Essex countryside, everything is remarkably peaceful here. In the garden, the only sounds come from birds, as they flit about or rustle in the hedges, looking for food.
“We’re in a dell and surrounded by 12 acres of land that gently rises up around the house,” says owner Jeremy Allen. “The garden is in a bowl, so we only hear nature: no traffic noise. The setting is what we bought the house for.” Like many old houses, it is an amalgam of styles; the traditional 16th century, timber-framed farmhouse having been ‘improved’ with a late Georgian facade, and augmented with further extensions in Victorian times. The church sold the house in 1955, and Jeremy and his wife, Beverly, became the second set of owners in 2004. The property and its locality are steeped in history: in the nearby church, dating from circa 1150, relations of the artist John Constable are buried, and Dedham Vale, where he so famously painted, is close by.
The 4-acre garden is also something of a picture in July, when the herbaceous perennials and tall prairie grasses are at their peak. The soil is heavy clay, but has been dosed with masses of home-made compost for more than a decade, resulting in a much more friable, plant-friendly medium. “I have added upwards of 20 tons of compost a year, and produce as much of that as I can,” says Jeremy. “If you mulch the beds every year, the worms do all the work.”
Decades of neglect
The Old Vicarage garden looks mature and has a timeless feel, but when the Allens moved in 15 years ago, it was a thicket of sycamore trees, brambles and nettles that had not been touched for nearly half a century. Even the house had a rogue tree growing out of it. After a year of renovations and refurbishment, they moved in during the August of 2005. But Jeremy had made a start on clearing the garden a year earlier. The last patch to be rescued was an area of scrubby woodland to the north of the house, which he replanted with more than 20 spring-blossoming amelanchier, or serviceberry, trees and meadow grasses. “I must have taken out 200 sycamores in all, but for almost every tree that has been cut down, I’ve planted a new one,” he says.
Obscured by the horde of sycamores was a framework of old trees, including oaks, horse chestnuts, a couple of limes and two very large beech trees, which edge the garden. Now, given more space, these magnificent characters create a shelterbelt for beech and yew hedges, shrubs, flowers and wispy grasses, not to mention the bees and butterflies that seek nectar and pollen here. The garden encircles the house, but the highlights created by Jeremy; the Rill Garden, Pool Garden, herbaceous Long Border, fruit orchard, prairie-style Top Garden, Molinia Beds, or Mid Garden, and two tribes of domed hebes, are all south- and east-facing.
On a hot July day, the flora and fauna wake up to fingers of sunlight touching leaves, stems and petals. “Sunrise is a
lovely time to be up in the Top Garden, because it’s the first area to catch the sun’s rays: we have a bench up there to sit and watch,” says Jeremy. A series of golden oats, Stipa gigantea, are the first grasses in these beds to be spot-lit by the sun, which forms a golden halo of light around them.
Change of career
The Old Vicarage is the Allens’ third garden during their 30 years together and by far the biggest. When Jeremy viewed the property, he could see the potential in the garden, despite the neglect. “For me, gardening is a passion that has grown exponentially since moving here,” he says. In fact, Jeremy became so inspired that he decided to leave a successful city
career in 2008 to retrain as a garden designer, attending the Inchbald School of Design, where he earned a distinction. Despite his training, he says that the garden has developed without much of a blueprint. “I’d clear an area, then come up with an idea. It has developed organically, but my first loves are herbaceous perennials and grasses.”
Jeremy’s vision for the garden begins at the patio, which extends from the sitting room doors outwards, and which is also the view from his study. Here, a group of seven evergreen Hebe rakaiensis are used to soften the lines of the patio and lead the eye towards the Long Border and, beyond that, the Rill Garden. Along with grasses, he uses hebes elsewhere in the garden as a ‘link plant’ and to create a sense of cohesion in the different planting schemes. “The beauty of hebes is that they grow in a perfectly natural dome shape, without being trimmed,” he says. “Eventually, they get a bit flabby, and you have to take them out and start over, but they only take two to three years to gain a decent size again.”
Beyond the hebe cluster is the Long Border; a fairly traditional and exuberantly planted bed of herbaceous perennials, measuring 105ft by 16½ft (32 x 5m), which was introduced in 2007, lavishing the clay soil with home-made compost. “It’s very high maintenance, with no shrubs at all,” says Jeremy, who chose plants primarily for their shape and structure when planting up this bed, leaving the colours to take care of themselves. A sea of phlox, delphiniums,
“When on a summer’s morn I wake, And open my two eyes, Out to the clear, born-singing rills My bird-like spirit flies”
W H Davies, ‘When on a Summer’s Morn’
Verbena bonariensis, geraniums, veronicastrums, salvias and knautia are the stalwarts that nod in the summer breeze, forming a gentle palette of blues, purples, pinks and reds that is at its most vibrant in mid- to late summer.
Sound of water
A few steps on from the Long Border is the Rill Garden, which Jeremy built in 2012. At 105ft long by 36ft wide (32 x 11m), the rill features water flowing along an upper and a lower ‘canal’, before spurting out over a chute into a smaller pool below, which makes a lovely sound. The white, grey and green planting scheme enhances the soothing presence of water, and in July, Hakonechloa macra grasses and the pompoms of hydrangea ‘Annabelle’ shine out amid the silvery leaves of six ornamental pear trees, Pyrus salicifolia ‘Pendula’. These petite trees, in turn, grow up through low squares of neatly trimmed box.
“There are two flushes in this garden: a month or two earlier, it’s white astrantias, white geraniums and hostas, such as ‘Francee’,” says Jeremy.
Long grasses surround the Rill Garden, making it appear even more secret. “On garden tours, visitors always say this is their favourite part of the Old Vicarage,” he adds. “The combination of green and white is very restful. Simplicity in
design is always the most effective, and that’s what I’ve tried to achieve in the layout and planting of the Rill Garden.”
Walking a little further on, a tunnel of hazels leads to the Pool Garden. Here, more domed hebes and stands of clipped box can be found fringing the former swimming pool, which Jeremy transformed into the Reflecting Pool some 12 years ago. From here can be seen the Molinia Beds, with their simply serried ranks of ‘Edith Dudszus’ grasses.
Growing tall
To the far end of the bowl-like garden, due east and a climb of approximately 10ft (3m), is perhaps the star of the show: the Top Garden. A series of seven beds are shaped as teardrops, or boteh motifs, which Jeremy first saw on a piece of paisley fabric. Woven through with grass paths, waist-high drifts of prairie plants, 40 to 50 plants strong, create ribbons of colour. There are Echinacea purpurea ‘Rubinstern’ and ‘White Swan’; Salvia guaranitica ‘Blue Ensign’; veronicastrum ‘Lavendelturm’; Persicaria amplexicaulis ‘Atrosanguinea’; and Actaea simplex ‘Atropurpurea’. “One of my favourites is the bobbly red Sanguisorba officinalis, which has an airy feel and moves in the summer breeze,” says Jeremy. These eye-catching flowers are counterbalanced by lots of grasses, which comprise half the planting scheme, including the feathery calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’, Stipa gigantea and Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’.
“The deep grass sighed and rustled And bowed and beckoned me”
Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘The Summer Sun Shone Round Me’
“I can’t think of anything nicer than being surrounded by plants,” says Jeremy, looking around him. “I love the peace and solitude that I find in this garden. I can’t quite believe how much we have achieved here in a relatively short period, creating volume and atmosphere, light and shade.”
But when it comes to taking any credit for the success of the garden, he becomes modest: “It’s not me, it’s nature, marshalled,” he says. “I stick things in the ground, and nature does the rest.”