A PLACE TO NURTURE
An established garden in Norfolk has been sensitively updated
Tucked between a forest park and a nature reserve, Wretham Lodge is isolated and peaceful, which is just how owners Gordon Alexander and Ian Salter like it. “We love the remoteness of the Breckland,” Gordon explains. “Hardly anyone comes down the road and the surrounding landscape is uncultivated countryside.” In spring, their walled garden is a feast for the eyes, with rivers of delicate yellow dog’s tooth violet Erythronium ‘Pagoda’ complemented by Brunnera macrophylla – which resembles a forget-me-not on steroids – and masses of hybrid hellebores allowed to self-seed in the fertile soil. Breckland is a medieval term for sandy heathland and this may have been the garden’s native soil at one time but over the years it has been improved, both by Gordon and Ian and by previous owner Anne Hoellering, who created the garden in the 1980s.
Originally, it majored in old-fashioned roses, with thousands of naturalised spring bulbs. When Gordon and Ian moved here 20 years ago, they felt that taking on this well-established garden was both a privilege and a challenge. “Mrs Hoellering had a terrific sense of colour but she didn’t like regimentation,” Gordon says. “We loved what she’d done, but wanted more formality, while keeping her paths through the long grass and naturalised bulbs.” Over the years, many of these bulbs in the parkland had stopped flowering, but two or three seasons of
patient digging, splitting and replanting has begun to pay dividends and many flowers have returned. This is now evident, as great expanses of ground are studded first with snowdrops and crocus, which then give way to bright blue scillas, pale primroses and carpets of elegant narcissus varieties.
As well as nurturing existing features, Gordon and Ian have made the garden their own with new developments. Assisted by full-time gardener Carl Harder, they have introduced more structure, creating an impressive avenue of yew pyramids marching down the back lawn, a double herbaceous border enclosed by yew and, in the established walled garden, an edging of clipped box (Buxus sempervirens ‘Suffruticosa’). This has the advantage of creating winter interest, with the evergreen topiary giving a crispness to the design, particularly in a hard frost. The box was grown from cuttings brought from Gordon and Ian’s previous garden to avoid the risk of introducing box blight. Creating edging from cuttings sounds like a laborious task but Ian says that with regular watering and feeding, they are actually faster growing than people might think.
In part, the walled garden has been returned to its original function. “We run it like a traditional vegetable garden,” Gordon says. “From mid-june until late winter we are more or less self-sufficient and tend to grow older vegetable varieties that we think taste better, such as carrot ‘Touchon’
“Half the fun is making vistas and structure”
One of the garden’s best features is its bold drifts of tulips
and potato ‘Pink Fir Apple’.” There is a productive orchard here, too, featuring 20 apple varieties, with pears, peaches and cherries also thriving.
In the cultivated areas, tulips are the showstoppers: diminutive species Tulipa sylvestris and stripy T. clusiana ‘Peppermintstick’ populate the walled garden, alongside full-grown cousins – dark plum T. ‘Jan Reus’ and creamy white T. ‘Purissima’, which is one of Gordon’s favourites for its ability to bulk up without human intervention. The double herbaceous border is home to a diversity of lilyflowered, double early and triumph varieties.
Nevertheless, Gordon and Ian have been cautious about planting too many tulips outside the walled garden, as the local muntjac deer view the young shoots as a tasty snack. Instead, they use large pots protected by wire netting until the plants start to flower, when they are no longer as attractive to wildlife. The exception is the lily-flowered T. ‘White Triumphator’, which thrives in open borders next to the house. “It’s one of the best,” Gordon says. “You can grow them in the ground or in pots; they don’t die out.”
One of the garden’s best features is its bold drifts of tulips. “It would be easy to have too many ideas, so we try to do masses of one thing,” Gordon says. “I think it gives a sense of scale.” This is increased by a series of long vistas that they have created between house, church, obelisk and a few of the most venerable trees. “Half the fun is making vistas and structure,” Ian says. “As well as year-round interest, they create a flow around the garden.”
THE GARDEN AT WRETHAM LODGE, East Wretham, Norfolk, is open for the National Garden Scheme (ngs.org.uk) on 21 and 22 April 2019 from 11am-5pm; admission £5, children free.