BURNING BRIGHTLY
Less than an hour’s drive south of Brussels, a British couple have quickly created a mature garden brimming with wonderful colour, scent and wildlife
In the Belgian countryside, a British couple have created a garden brimming with colour, scent and wildlife
When Ginny and Jon Caldwell began building a house in wooded countryside 30 miles south of Brussels, they could see from one end of the site to the other. Now, ten years on, the trees, grasses and shrubs they have planted have turned it into a beguiling garden that visitors are drawn to explore, with several ponds, hidden paths and steps, and multi-layered planting to introduce elements of surprise and intrigue.
“We always promised ourselves that when we retired we would buy a big plot and devote ourselves to growing all the things we didn’t have the space or the time to care for before,” Ginny says. They took a pragmatic approach, reckoning on having ten good years (“20 if we are fortunate”) to see it mature, so they have worked expressly with that in mind, choosing semi-mature specimens where possible and planting more densely than might be recommended.
The house took nearly two years to build, so they started on the garden long before they were able to move in, beginning at the furthest boundary 100 metres from the property. The site slopes dramatically – ten metres from the highest point to the lowest – so this had to be taken into account with steps and some terracing. At the bottom they dug a large pond and commissioned a local craftswoman to design a charming cabin overlooking it, with storage space for their gardening tools. Featuring reclaimed windows and a veranda and deck, it’s a lovely spot to retreat to. “We call it the boathouse because it reminds us of one,” Ginny says, “although there is no boat!”
One of the first moves they made was to persuade their neighbour to let them fell a line of towering conifers that were depriving their land of light and moisture. This done, they
planted native hedging and tackled the undergrowth. “‘Sart’ is an old Walloon word for cleared land,” Ginny explains, “and as we wanted to fill this plot with flowers, we chose the name Fleurisart.”
In autumn the acers and miscanthus – of which they have many – come into their own. ‘Osakazuki’ and ‘Bloodgood’ both glow bright red for weeks and there are bonfire-bright orange tones in some of the others, whose names they can no longer recall. Jon chops down the miscanthus in January using a hedge trimmer: “All the gardening books tell you they are stunning in the winter and they are, but shortly after that point I think they look really awful and bits drop off and blow all over the place. That’s when I take them down. It’s the only maintenance they require.”
A visit to Bressingham Gardens in Norfolk introduced Ginny and Jon to the notion of island beds and they realised that these were just what they needed in the most wooded area of their site. “We had some good mature trees already, so we created island beds around several of them and then began underplanting with layers of interesting trees and shrubs,” Ginny says.
As a third of the garden is woodland, they have selected azaleas, rhododendrons and pieris that provide good colour earlier in the year, with hellebores and bulbs. Specimen trees have been chosen for their good looks, including the purple-leaved plum Prunus cerasifera ‘Nigra’, golden Indian bean tree Catalpa bignonioides ‘Aurea’, and Chinese dogwood Cornus kousa var. chinensis, which has showy white flowers in summer and great autumn colour. Jon favours witch hazels and Hydrangea paniculata, too. Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Jelena’ is also a favourite, with fragrant coppery orange flowers that invariably bloom on Christmas Day.
Topography has dictated where certain features should go. The house is on levelled land near the top of the site, so above it they have created what Jon calls the ‘hanging gardens’,
a series of lavender- and rose-filled terraces that hug the property and create a backdrop for a sheltered, covered terrace. Beside these is a large pond with another terrace, leading to three further ponds, which attract a wide range of wildlife, with red squirrels and more than 50 species of birds, including kingfishers.
In the sunniest spot and on the only naturally level piece of land is a walled potager for vegetables, fruit and herbs, dahlias and cutting flowers. Jon jokes that he adds another layer of bricks to the raised beds here every year: “As I find it increasingly difficult to bend down, I make sure the beds come up to meet me.”
Ginny says they have learned the wisdom of ‘working with the conditions you have’. “You can’t fight your soil,” she says, “and you can’t fight the climate. We suffered a drought recently: 11 months with below-average rainfall. As a result, several trees and shrubs have suffered but any that die won’t be replaced. Within the first year after planting, a new shrub or tree will be given a bucket of water every Sunday but after that they have to tough it out.”
The couple have created lots of corners to relax in, where they can catch the morning light or be warmed by the last of the winter sun. They sit in the garden most days as well as working in it. “Make the most of what you have and then do your own thing,” Ginny advises. “We plant what we like where we like and never worry about fashion,” Jon adds. “Our garden has been in and out of style at least three times already! You don’t always have to follow the rules.”
Fleurisart, 1470 Bousval, Belgium, is open one day in mid-june for the Belgian Open Gardens scheme (for details, see jardinsouverts.be – Le Jardin de Ginny et Jon) and also for groups (ten-plus) by appointment. Contact virginia.caldwell@skynet.be or call 00 32 10 611557.