Colourful garden full of surprises

Planted to soothe body and mind, the leafy haven at Wick Farm in Somerset is sprinkled with surprising decorative features

IN THE HEART of the Somerset Levels, just a stone’s throw from the lovely market town of Langport, stands a 16th century farmhouse, its garden awash with colour and texture on a sunny April afternoon. An early-flowering rambling rose climbs the Ham stone walls of the property, its primrose-yellow blooms contrasting with the purple flowers of a Chilean potato vine as the two plants intertwine. The house faces away from the road to take advantage of a south-facing vista, and the farm and garden, some 23 acres, span three sides of the house.

This is Wick Farm, and Penny Horne moved here from south-west London 20 years ago, with her four young sons. Penny had gone to school in the area and felt a very real connection to Somerset, so she scoured listings in newspapers to find a home in the locality. When she saw a photograph of Wick Farm, she instantly fell in love with it, but on speaking to the estate agents, she found that the farm was already under offer. Reluctantly, she let it go and continued her search without any luck.

“I’m glad I am alive, to see and feel The full deliciousness of this bright day, That’s like a heart with nothing to conceal; The young leaves scarcely trembling”

William Allingham, ‘On a Forenoon of Spring’

Six months later, the agent contacted her to say that the sale had fallen through, and Penny seized the opportunity to buy it. She moved her family from their home in Putney, with its handkerchief-sized garden, to the farm and its 23 acres. To this day, Penny feels that it was fate that brought her here, and the farm was always supposed to be hers.

After a couple of years spent renovating the house and the old barn next door, she felt ready to take on the garden. “I wanted to see how the garden looked through the seasons before I tackled it,” she explains. “I invited a girlfriend over and, between us, we planned the garden: the terrace at the side of the house; the path leading to the fields; the topiary garden, and the meadow garden.” There were old falling-down structures dotted around: walls, piles of old stone, and ancient farm machinery. But Penny loved all of it, and each one found a place in the garden.

Right from the start, she enlisted the help of Sian Gill, a ‘work-away’ gardener from Australia. Penny was not an experienced gardener, but she had attended a course run by writer and gardener Helen Yemm. In fact, she enjoyed it so much that she went on the course twice to ensure she had picked up everything. Helen taught her how to ‘shape’ the garden, and to use colour and texture. This was music to

Penny’s ears. “I don’t remember the names of plants, but I love colour. I was a home stylist, and this way of gardening suited me: I understood it,” she says. So plants were chosen for form and colour, and this threads through the whole garden. To this day, Sian still works with Penny.

The soil is heavy clay, which they have improved by adding manure and their own home-made compost. Penny gardens organically because she wanted to rewild the farm, to create the habitat that native species thrive in.

Garden of mementos

To the right of the barn, where Penny lives, is a giant owl wall hanging from Bali, collected on her travels. And to the right of this, through a narrow entrance, is the walled vegetable garden, now filled with a thick mix of flowers, with more herbs than vegetables. This part of the garden, like the rest, is liberally dotted with ephemera collected over the years. Wire hares leap over the beds, and old wooden ladders lean against the Ham stone walls of the barn, ready for the fruit-picking season. An old apple tree is swathed in gentle pink flowers of Clematis montana in spring. Aquilegia self-seeds everywhere. Tulips are dotted around too, and sword-like leaves of iris cut through the verdant green carpet. A low wall at the entrance showcases one of Penny’s mosaics: glass shapes that glisten in the sun and shells are pressed into mortar made from a dry mix of four parts sand to one part cement. It is this attention to detail that makes this garden such a joy; there is always something to see.

Returning to the terrace by the barn is an old farm trough filled with ranunculus and zinnia in zingy orange and shocking pink, echoing the wooden garden furniture. Penny gathered some friends together to help paint them, choosing vibrant shades of lime green, pink and orange. “My favourite country is India, and these colours remind me of the times I have spent there,” she says.

A yellow Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’ climbs up the wall and twines with a Chilean potato bush, Solanum crispum, its purple, star-shaped flowers making a pleasing contrast. It is here that friends and family gather under the shelter, come rain or shine. Souvenirs hang from the wall; strands of fabric birds and handmade hearts dangle on coloured strings; two old stained glass windows and an Indian painting hang here

“The stone, with the white and the yellow and grey, We discovered I cannot tell how far away; And I carried it back although weary and cold, For though father denies it, I’m sure it is gold”

Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘My Treasures’

too. Some of these treasures are from Penny’s travels; others are gifts from friends. Each one offers a special memory.

From this terrace, a path leads on towards the fields and the wood up on the hill. A beautiful red iron gate Penny found at a market in France leads from the garden proper to the farmland beyond. Pleached lime trees grow either side of the path, and the contrast of the lush green leaves and the rusted red gate is stunning. Penny eats the new lime leaves in salads. These trees are pruned every year in October to maintain their shape. In spring, a generous sprinkling of forget-me-nots and bluebells emerge beneath. To the right of the path is a large bed filled with allium ‘Purple Sensation’, tulipa ‘Black Parrot’ and a white tulip. “I planted those one year, and they are just so happy: they pop up every year and look amazing,” says Penny. Allium planted in a dryish, sunny bed will multiply year after year; some tulips do the same.

Medicinal garden

From here, a meditation garden is reached: a circle of hedging, with seating to make a calm space for Penny and visitors to

use. Next to this is a medicinal garden: a project that Sian was keen to undertake. There are seven sections filled with herbs to remedy ailments affecting different parts of the body. There is one for respiratory problems, where soapwort,

Saponaria officinalis; horehound, Marrubium vulgare; marshmallow, Althaea officinalis; and hyssop, Hyssopus officinalis, grow. A neurological bed is filled with feverfew,

Tanacetum parthenium; St John’s wort, Hypericum perforatum; and valerian, Valariana officinalis. A cardiovascular bed includes foxgloves, Digitalis purpurea; rosemary, Rosemarinus

officinalis; and yarrow, Achillea millefolium. There are also beds to increase immunity, improve digestion and alleviate urinary problems. Many of the herbs flower and can be included in perennial flower beds, as they are great for attracting insects and birds. Medicinal gardens have been grown for millennia, and Sian is learning to make tinctures of the herbs by soaking certain parts of the plant for several days or weeks in vinegar or alcohol. Penny swears by them.

Circling around from here leads to the old vegetable garden, now referred to as the Hare Garden after the giant

“The Herbs ought to be distilled when they are in their greatest vigour, and so ought the Flowers also”

Nicholas Culpeper, The English Physitian

hare head that stands guard at the top. The sculpture was made by John Wingfield after Penny had seen a sketch in a children’s book and thought it would be fun to make a giant hare’s head. This part of the garden is now used to grow a heady mix of picking flowers and lots more herbs, such as rosemary and fennel.

This leads round to a meadow at the front of the farmhouse. In spring, it is filled with primroses, camassia, bluebells and star flowers. A path is mown into the grass around it, and at its centre is an old Judas tree, which has toppled over, its branches twisting through the long grass. In spring, it is covered with violet flowers and copper leaves, which is a stunning combination. Each year, Penny looks forward to this show. “It resembles a giant’s crown,” she says.

An old cast-iron cot stands haphazardly in the meadow; a pale yellow potentilla weaves through the bars. “I was looking for antique beds for the house, and I found a farm selling copies in East Anglia,” says Penny. “The farmer had all the original beds out in a field. I loved that idea, so when I found this cot, I just left it in the meadow.”

Topiary garden

At the front of the farmhouse is the topiary garden. “When we moved here, it was full of plants and was all a bit of a muddle,” explains Penny. She decided that topiary would work well, and, with the help of garden designer Amanda Wills, they planned a trip to a tree nursery in Belgium, where

they bought sizeable specimens so that they did not have to wait for them to grow. These purchases included purple beech, Fagus sylvatica ‘Atropurpurea’, shaped as umbrellas; yew, Taxus baccata, clipped into balls; with Enkianthus perulatus, which is a good alternative to box.

Planting big specimens means that each summer, until the roots have grown into the new soil, the trees need to be regularly watered. They were also staked so that the wind did not rock and lift them. With comic charm, and to echo the lollipop shapes of the trees, Penny makes pom-poms in vibrant colours and ties them onto the branches, where they dance around in the breeze and bring a smile to the faces of all who visit. A recent addition has been the mosaic path leading through the topiary to the front door of the house. Penny collected china, shells and glass, and she and friends mosaic artist Beth Purcell and stonemason Base Gamble created the colourful path over three days.

Each part of the garden spirals around the farmhouse and barn. At the back of the barn, there is a driveway, with painted tyres filled with compost. These are used to grow potatoes in. As they are lifted up from the ground, the potatoes suffer less from blight, which is a problem that Penny has encountered when growing them in the past.

On the outer fringe of the garden, next to an old pond, Penny commissioned artist Mark Willenbruch to make a labyrinth, with stone collected from the farm. While laying them, Mark encountered numerous Grass snakes, which proceeded to shed their skins on the rocks. As a result, they decided that this should be a ‘shedding’ labyrinth: those who enter it should do so while thinking of something in their life that they want to let go of, and once they walk round the labyrinth and out again, it is cast aside.

Bird’s eye view

Penny’s latest venture is the shape of a branch cut into the slope leading to the woods. Each leaf of the branch is planted with Betula albosinensis, with a peach-coloured bark, and Tibetan cherry, Prunus serrula, for its rich red umber, peeling bark. The effect can only be appreciated from above, but Penny loves the idea of creating a landmark on her farm that can only be viewed by birds and a few passengers on planes as they fly overhead.

Over the years, by managing the land naturally, her plan to rewild the farm has paid dividends. By not using pesticides and giving animals and birds a habitat which suits them, it is full of wildlife. Barn owls and Tawny owls breed here, and buzzards circle overhead and nest in the woods on the hill, eating an abundance of small field mice and voles. Bats skitter around at dusk: they nest in the rafters of the barn and farmhouse. Lots of different birds, including robins, blackbirds and sparrows, wake everyone up with a delightful dawn chorus and feast on the many insects thriving on the plants which are grown for just that reason. And Grass snakes and Slow worms slither around the labyrinth and bask against stones warmed by the sun.

An old deep red rose climbs up the front of the farmhouse, its rich flower heads framing the window.

Penny Horne at the rustic entrance to her barn at Wick Farm in Somerset.

The approach to the front of the old farmhouse, with its lollipop topiary, Judas tree and iron cot in the grass, offers clues to the quirkiness of the garden.

Clockwise from top left: More for decoration than use, an old wooden ladder is propped against the Ham stone wall of the barn; the colourful glass and tile mosaic at the entrance to the walled garden; a large owl wall hanging is a surprising feature on a brightly painted outhouse; delicate strands of fabric birds and beads strung from the covered terrace.

A wire hare attached to a wooden spade appears to be leaping over the plants.

Layered flame orange ranunculus petals tinged with red planted in the trough by the barn (far left). The exotic rainbow-painted outdoor dining area inspired by Penny’s travels in India (left).

A perfect spring colour pairing of Rosa banksiae ‘Lutea’ and Solanum crispum entwined against the Ham stone wall of the house.

The striking pleached lime avenue, underplanted with cool-coloured forget-me-nots and bluebells.

Rusted red gates, with swirls of wrought iron, open onto the pleached lime walk, adding their own weathered charm.

A vintage fruit-picking ladder adds more interest to the trees lining a path, blending naturally with the bark.

A hare’s head sculpture looms over the end of a strip of lawn, one of many unusual elements to delight visitors to the garden.

The view from the farmhouse to the fields beyond. The framework of the old cot has a potentilla growing prettily through it.

Wool pom-poms hang like baubles from a yew umbrella (left). Painted tyres, used as containers for planting potatoes, add more splashes of colour around stone steps (right).

The topiary garden, with a maroon mound of purple beech, underplanted with vivid green globes of Enkianthus perulatusa.

The path leading to the meadow garden, where an old hay wain from a bygone age nestles among the grass and violet camassia.

The circular labyrinth, with its irregular stone-edged paths, was constructed as a contemplative walkway.