A MAGICAL SPACE
WITH VIEWS OF WATERSHIP DOWN, ADAM AND HEIDI VETERE’S GARDEN IS FILLED WITH MEDITERRANEAN AND EXOTIC INFLUENCES
An exotic Hampshire garden on the site of an old Roman camp is filled with Mediterranean-style borders and prairie planting
It is rare for a garden to merge so readily into an ancient landscape, but the planting at Old Camps harmonises perfectly with the surrounding Hampshire countryside. ‘The first time I came down the drive and saw the stupendous view towards Watership Down, I was hooked,’ recalls Adam Vetere.
Tucked away on a hillside in the village of Headley, Old Camps is built on the site of a former Roman camp. It is now a decade since Adam, his wife Heidi, and their young son Luke moved in. While the bungalow they had bought was being transformed, Adam used the architect’s ground plan to map out a design for the garden that would wrap around the house on three sides.
Paying homage to formality, a knot garden and potager lie to the west of the house, while to the east there is a cottage garden, incorporating some of the original roses and phloxes, which harks back to the original house. The remainder of the garden has a more contemporary feel, with a bed of exotics more usually found in the sub-tropics, and long twin borders – one filled with drifts of perennials and ornamental grasses, while its opposite number is home to Mediterranean sun-lovers. ‘My father is Italian and as a child we holidayed there every other year, so I came to know and love the plants in this region,’ says Adam.
The garden is very much a family affair. Luke, now 17, helps maintain the lawn, while Heidi is chief propagator, ensuring that each spring the glasshouse is full of vegetable plants for the potager, as well as the many annuals and perennials that inject seasonal colour. Prior to following a new career path in garden design, Adam worked for an engineering company, travelling
abroad extensively, and it was during these overseas trips that he found inspiration from many different planting styles.
‘I saw prairie planting in America, desert plants in the Middle East, and exotics while visiting Singapore and Thailand,’ he says. ‘The challenge has been understanding each individual plant’s needs and meeting them in this country. I love exotic plants, but they are demanding. However, if you play to their strengths, they reward you with lush architectural foliage and fabulous flowers.’ Another challenge has been cost, and Adam spent hours trawling the internet for discounted plants. ‘At one nursery that imported Italian plants I found the “sickbay” – for a few hundred pounds I bought plants worth thousands of pounds which, after a year of TLC, recovered and flourished,’ he says.
The Veteres carried out the hands-on gardening, only needing help with some hard landscaping. Fortunately, the one-acre sloping plot was largely terraced with limestone retaining walls – there is a 2.5-metre drop from the new deck beside the house to the long Mediterranean-style border below. ‘This meant I could plant trees, such as palms and pencil-thin cypresses, that you can see through or round, creating a feeling of enclosure and intimacy, but without blocking the view,’ says Adam.
The garden is designed to create a sense of the unexpected. The first surprise is a miniature ericaceous border in which acers and azaleas part to allow glimpses of the landscape above a willow hurdle boundary fence. There are many more vantage points within the garden, drawing the eye out over fields to the point where Hannington Hill meets the horizon. This is
Watership Down territory, complete with the rabbit burrows that inspired Richard Adams to write the novel of the same name.
A hot, south-facing bank, known as the Desert Bed, is planted with yuccas, agaves, aeoniums, Astelia chathamica, and a dwarf fan palm, Chamaerops humilis. Adam’s chosen exotics in the lower borders include a pair of loquat trees, Eriobotrya japonica, along with ginger lilies, cannas, and the pineapple guava, Acca
sellowiana, a native of New Zealand. ‘My local garden centre advised against growing it, but I enjoy the challenge of seeing what will grow here.’ There are also four leafy Japanese bananas, Musa basjoo, which, come autumn, are stripped of the leaves so that each stem can be protected in winter by a thick layer of straw wrapped in horticultural fleece.
The prairie-style border peaks during mid- to late-july, aglow with red Kniphofia ‘Flamenco’, Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’, Helenium
‘Sahin’s Early Flowerer’ and Coreopsis grandiflora ‘Early Sunrise’ among others. As the flowers fade, a golden halo of seed heads atop a Stipa gigantea intensifies in a sinking sun. Then, in autumn, clumps of Miscanthus sinensis come into their own, interspersed with gem-like Michaelmas daisies.
It is all overlooked by a bench, a quiet spot to enjoy this very special place. ‘I can’t imagine life without the garden,’ says Adam. ‘We spend so much of our lives out here: it’s somewhere we can truly relax and unwind. It’s a real tonic.’ ☎ OLD CAMPS IS OPEN FOR THE NGS ON 4 AND 5 AUGUST, NGS.ORG.UK. GROUPS BY ARRANGEMENT UNTIL 30 SEPTEMBER, CALL 07720 449702. ADAM VETERE LANDSCAPE & GARDEN DESIGN, ADAMVETERE.CO.UK.