A WELLSPRING OF IDEAS
The Garden House at Buckland Monachorum in Devon has become a byword for inspirational planting, which is particularly evident in its beautiful early spring displays
Take inspiration from the spellbinding early spring displays at one of Britain’s finest gardens
A north-facing wooded hillside might not sound like the most promising place to create an ambitious garden, but the grounds around this one-time vicarage on the edge of Dartmoor have been a magnet for visitors for decades, with a succession of fine plantspeople making their mark here.
Most are drawn to The Garden House in summer, but in February it holds subtler charms, not least of which is a stunning bulb meadow running down a mossy bank to the woods below. Studded with countless Crocus tommasinianus, the wild species crocus from central Europe, it is a carpet of slender, goblet-shaped lilac flowers backed with a hint of silver, that open obligingly when low-slanting sunlight catches them. Sprinkled through these are sunshine-yellow winter aconites, with their ruffs of green leaves, snowdrops, scillas and the emerging flowers of hellebores, hovering on long stems.
Natural as the contours of this area seem, they are earthworks created with a mini-digger by legendary head gardener Keith Wiley, whose extraordinary naturalistic planting schemes inspired by his travels have startled and thrilled the horticultural world with their originality. He toiled at The Garden House for 25 years until 2003, when he left to start his own garden and nursery, Wildside, a few miles up the road. The bulb meadow is just one of the many new areas he pioneered, breaking out from the original walled garden that Lionel and Katharine Fortescue started with when they bought the vicarage and ten acres of land in 1945. Fern-edged gullies run through here, where Keith also fashioned imaginative stone structures, one resembling a meteorite, another a beehive shape and, some distance away, a granite stone circle.
Further up, near the house, are lawns edged with fine herbaceous plants, including a special collection of snowdrops brought by galanthus authority Matt Bishop, who followed Keith and stayed
“I want every bit of ground to earn its keep, with spring, summer and autumn interest”
for nine years, redesigning large parts of the walled garden and creating a new arboretum on the site of the former plant nursery. Current head gardener Nick Haworth, who arrived in 2013, respects the plans of his predecessors but, as a down-to-earth Yorkshireman, he is shot through with a strong practical streak. “We have different projects every year and one of mine has been to widen the paths, enabling me access on a tractor and trailer. The bulb meadow used to be dressed with a 50/50 peat-grit mix. Now we bring in great bales of bracken mulch and spread them about – it’s much lighter and deters the moss growth that can smother small plants over the very wet winters here. The plants are responding well.”
Nick has also been charged by the Fortescue Garden Trust, which was set up in 1967 to ensure the estate’s long-term survival, with “raising the skirts” of the gardens to let in more light where areas have become overcrowded – opening up the views, restoring the quarry garden and replanting the former South African garden with the aim of maintaining colour and impact for longer. “I want every bit of ground to earn its keep, with spring, summer and autumn interest,” he says. Last spring, one hundred clematis were planted to scramble through shrubs and add a layer of colour.
New plants he introduces need to be interesting and notable, in keeping with the garden’s ethos, but Nick doesn’t fight the prevailing conditions, as this would require a management
regime too intense to keep up: “We have some wet areas, some drier, but as this is the side of the moor where the rain falls when it comes in from the west, most plants here are going to need to have enough oomph and vigour to get over the damp.”
In February, bright-stemmed cornus shine out around the main lawn. The fine-twigged and decidedly bonfire-like ‘Midwinter Fire’ is one of them, along with Cornus alba ‘Sibirica’, underplanted with winter aconites and snowdrops. The first snowdrops, Galanthus reginae-olgae, appear in October, while many more of Matt Bishop’s fine collection come through in January and February. Other highlights of colour are provided by Cyclamen coum and a very early, semi-hardy Camellia transnokoensis, with clusters of small white flowers opening from pink buds.
In the cottage garden, which was known as the Cretan garden in Keith’s day, Nick recognises the need to “garden by steering with a light hand on the tiller”, maintaining a balance between the wild charm that makes it one of the most photographed areas here and the more prosaic practical considerations that allow it to be managed by Nick and his team. “I think of myself as a restorer of gardens rather than a creator,” he says. “I don’t feel a strong desire to stamp my own imprint on a place.” He still nurses ambitions – such as installing a Victorian-style greenhouse for visitors to wander through and building a mound to open up a view right across the garden to the stone circle, should funds ever allow – but with a garden as widely loved and recognised as this one, it is no wonder he elects to take a softly, softly approach.
The Garden House, Buckland Monachorum, Yelverton, Devon, is open every weekend in February, 11am-3pm, and then daily from 3 March to 28 October 2018, 10.30am-4pm (01822 854769; thegardenhouse.org.uk).
“Sometimes you need to garden by steering with a light hand on the tiller”