A GARDEN FOR EVERY MOOD
Alison Green has transformed rough lawn into a series of romantic Arts & Crafts-style garden rooms at her home, Theobalds Farmhouse
A two-acre plot has been reinvented by dividing it into a dozen beautiful outdoor spaces
The unlikely setting of this impressive garden only heightens its impact. Hemmed inside the M25, and within the London Borough of Enfield, Theobalds Farmhouse Garden defies suburban expectation. Garden designer Alison Green, who trained at Capel Manor College and The London School of Gardening, bought the Grade II listed 17th-century farmhouse in 1999.
‘My instinct was to create four small gardens around the house,’ Alison says. Typical of the Arts & Crafts style and inspired by garden rooms at Hidcote, Sissinghurst and Great Dixter, each garden was to be unique and gardened organically.
In front of the farmhouse house lies a neatly tied Knot Garden, ‘reflective of the period’, with two mirror-image Celtic knot designs traced and then crafted in box, Buxus sempervirens, either side of the house’s entrance. Enclosed in yew (Taxus baccata), evergreen walls contain the space decorated with corresponding symmetrical planting of the ornamental wedding cake tree, Cornus contraversa ‘Variegata’, which is silver in spring and caramelising in autumn. Ruddy-hued peony foliage brings warmth beyond the perimeter of the knots, which are left unplanted to reduce the risk of box blight. The equivalent fully enclosed space to the rear of the house has limited sunlight.
The Courtyard Garden is paved with York stone and is set with a stone fountain on a circular, sun-design pebble mosaic.
The enclosed Gravel Garden was formerly a box-rimmed parterre. ‘It succumbed to blight but the inner plantings remain tall and engulfing: Japanese anemones, Persicaria, and sixfoot-tall scented roses, ‘Lichfield Angel’ and ‘Jaqueline du Pre’ flower until first frosts,’ says Alison. Curved beds sweep around a
❝ I GARDEN ORGANICALLY WITH PLANTS WHICH ATTRACT POLLINATORS. BIRDS, BUTTERFLIES AND BEES BRING THE GARDEN TO LIFE AND KEEP PESTS AT BAY ❞
circular, lavender-filled raised plinth planted with an on-the-turn fig tree. Colour floods into this cool, green enclave backlit by the brilliance of autumnal acers, liquidambar and sweet cherries, the borrowed landscape of turning trees in the gardens beyond.
The matching Ornamental Garden space, enclosed by yew walls and the east-facing side of the house, is open to the skies. ‘The space was reclaimed from a large overgrown area of open grass. A circular lawn collared with a necklace of brickwork occupies the central, sun-spilled space with surrounding cottagegarden style planting,’ says Alison. ‘Masses of trees and shrubs, oak-leaved Hydrangea quercifolia and Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Frisia’, colour up in autumn to create great contrast with the evergreen architecture.’ This theme is reiterated throughout the gardens where Alison, in ardent pursuit of successional planting, ensures there is year-round interest.
Beyond the original four small garden rooms, intimate to the house, there’s an abundance of outlying gardens decorative and different by design. Modern in feel, the Spiral Garden is a living interpretation of an interior room inspired by and created from soil from earthworks in the adjoining Jewel Garden. Equidistant plantings of white-legged Himalayan Birches, Betula utilis subsp. jacquemontii ‘Grayswood Ghost’, frame a spiralling raised-grass mound, based on the golden section logarithmic spiral.
Beyond lies a rippling lake of lawn, naturalistic arcs of grasses, mown in bands to preserve habitat for pollinators and wildlife, petering away from the more cultivated areas of the garden.
The massive lawn is boldly framed with huge colour-themed big
❝I’m never afraid to move plants. If it’s not working, out they come. My landscaper teases me that my plants have wheels – in the early days I moved them so often, striving for perfection!❞
borders. In autumn the Exotic Border is a riot of strictly curated colour. ‘Brilliant oranges and rich deep maroons dominate with explosions of fiery day lilies, helenium, rudbeckias, towering sunflowers and purple clouds of Verbena bonariensis and giant purple Dahlia ‘Thomas A Edison’,’ says Alison. Beyond lies the similarly vibrant Jewel Garden, at its richest in autumn. Concentric rings of brick, grass, pool and fountain decorate the lower circle while the upper circle bed is planted with a windmill palm, Trachycarpus fortunei, striped foliage, orange-flowered Canna ‘Pretoria’, Amaranthus paniculatus ‘Marvel Bronze’ surrounded by an array of richly-coloured Dahlias,‘tartan’, ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ and ‘Preference’. ‘It’s warm and sheltered, so I’m able to leave even tender plants to overwinter here, except the potted bananas which are moved into the glass houses,’ explains Alison. Productive greenhouses, fruit and vegetable plots lie just behind the Jewel Garden which is in turn divided from the Water Gardens by a new Pebble Mosaic Garden. The gardens all slope away from the house, culminating in the distant naturalistic swimming pond with its circular wooden decks, wildlife pond and stream, introduced in 2005. Both are camouflaged by a thick fringe of reeds and rushes, and in the far garden corner, tucked away from more visited garden areas, hives of contented honey bees. ‘I am helped, three days a week, by John Allwork, whose speciality is water gardening, and Vicki Smith, who make sure everything is always at its best for visitors,’ explains Alison.
Theobald Farm Gardens are open by group appointment only. Email alison.g.green@talk21.com for seasonal visits and teas.