INTO THE FLOWER BOWER
There is something to pique interest at every turn in this Oxfordshire garden, not least the Victorian glasshouse that forms the elegant centrepiece
An enchanting walled garden with exuberant spring planting has something intriguing at every turn
Garden designer Sue Ashton has a beady eye for a straight line. Anything slightly out of true bothers her, so having a Victorian glasshouse that runs across her plot at a completely arbitrary angle is a challenge for her. “This is not the garden I would design for other people,” she says, smiling ruefully. “But it is the one we have and it comes with history.”
Like many who take on an established garden from someone else, Sue feels the ghosts of the previous owners – in this case, her late parents Ruth and Roger, both keen gardeners, who bought the property in 1985 and lived here until 12 years ago: “I can hear my father saying, ‘You can’t dig that up – your mother planted it!’ so I move forward respectfully, adapting things but not radically altering the key components.”
There is half an acre to play with, walled on two sides, with its boundaries disguised by trees, and Sue has brought her extensive experience of designing country-house gardens to bear by ensuring there is something of interest at every turn: “I love the 18th-century landscape garden approach, whereby you have to follow the route and go through all the emotions that are offered to you by each new experience. There is no reason why you shouldn’t achieve a similar effect in a smaller space.”
The key to making this work, she believes, is to offer multiple ways to turn. “Even in a tiny garden, you want to feel there are routes to explore.” At the top of the garden, which catches the last of the sun’s light, a path of York stone slabs set in fine gravel (Sue recommends 6-10mm for the best effect) climbs to a small painted teahouse. Surrounded by greenery – deciduous Corylopsis pauciflora underplanted with a fringe of grass-like Hakonechloa macra on one side and a lush, narrow-leaved hebe (Hebe parviflora var. angustifolia) on the other – it is a fine place to linger over an evening drink.
On the way up, turn left or right to look at the ornamental vegetable garden, fashioned out of terraced raised beds, pause to admire a swirl of tall, colourful perennials, or stoop to examine ferns around a water feature. This is a garden that is packed with interest, every detail considered. “A lot of meticulous gardening goes on here,” Sue says, citing the help her experienced gardener Alex gives her.
Sue’s father was an antiques dealer and her mother a botanist. ‘Setting a scene’ was ingrained in her from an early age, so much so that the ornamental kitchen garden beds are more decorative than practical. When Sue’s husband Hugo asks if they might eat the kale, it’s usually a no (“although the beans can be picked as the plants remain to decorate their supports”). Happily, there are further veg beds behind the glasshouse that can be harvested instead.
The Victorian glasshouse, where her father once grew prize auriculas, is Sue’s joy. In early spring,
she sows seeds here and, later on, it becomes a decorative show space: “I spend an inordinate amount of time in here, giving it that carefree look of no one having done anything – it’s all artifice!” Bougainvillea and vines climb to the roof over a pergola made of reeded Regency metal. Underneath is a table where Sue and Hugo often eat and entertain friends. Some of the pelargoniums came from cuttings of plants that were in her childhood home: “They tower and cascade and I pick over them endlessly, primping and deadheading.” Succulents, meanwhile, are a new passion and sit alongside a beautiful glass case won by an ancestor of Sue’s when he exhibited orchids at an RHS flower show in the 19th century.
Although Sue would like to realign the glasshouse to run parallel with the house (“How tidy that would be!”), she has integrated it into the garden by surrounding it with planting. “I have anchored the base with box (Buxus sempervirens) – it ‘holds it down’ and reduces its impact.” A precisely placed silver birch stops the sun from dazzling her when it hits the roof of the glasshouse in the afternoon.
Sue often test-drives plants for use in her clients’ gardens and is keen to promote the “ordinary” alongside the more unusual. She likes Lonicera ligustrina ‘Lemon Beauty’, which she clips into peaks like whipped cream. Elaeagnus ‘Quicksilver’ is another favourite, with its silvery, willow-like leaves. By the teahouse, she grows hypericum because it thrives in this garden. “I gathered every piece of it and massed it together in one spot, where it provides wonderful ground cover in shade. Cut it down to the ground in winter and up it comes again – absolutely marvellous.”
Her advice is to “choose plants that grow well, are appropriate for your garden and look good where you’ve placed them”. At one time, Sue thought she might go into interior design but soon realised that she wasn’t very interested in soft furnishings. “The great joy of ‘exterior decorating’ is that everything grows and changes according to the seasons and the time of day. That’s what excites me.”
“Even in a tiny garden, you want to feel there are routes to explore”