Outdoor rooms frame views
Valley views, formal lawns and adventurous planting add drama in this colourful garden. Owner Jackie Healy shows us around
There are few views to rival the sweeping panoramas of the Wye Valley in the Forest of Dean. This leafy garden lies on the EnglishWelsh border near Chepstow and frames those rolling hillsides perfectly. “You can see the hills just peeping through the trees,” says owner Jackie Healy, who lives here with her husband Fintan. “We have a mound in the back garden that’s part of the original Offa’s Dyke. We’re not allowed to plant on it, but as it’s in a wooded part of the garden I’ve planted rhododendrons around it and positioned a standing stone on top. “Our soil here is acidic and very heavy clay,” says Jackie. “We have builders here at the moment using a digger to excavate footings for a new extension, and it’s like slicing through a cake. The texture is so dense it bakes to concrete in summer, but becomes a sticky mess in winter. “There are lots of benefits to having clay though – plants such as rhododendrons, roses and Japanese anemones don’t mind at all. Others don’t manage quite so well – I have to plunge-plant my dahlias into the border in their pots, lifting them at the end of the season to overwinter in the greenhouse. But on the whole I think clay is better.” Jackie has gardened all her life and comes from a gardening family. “When we bought the house in 2008 I could see that the garden had potential. At the time it was just grass, with one huge rhododendron in the middle of the front lawn and lots of mature trees all around – some of them dating back 200 years, so we’re really very lucky. “It wasn’t until 2012 that we started to develop the garden in earnest,” says
The soil is heavy clay... but there are lots of benefits for rhododendrons and roses
Jackie. “We began by hard landscaping the area around the house to make space for dining al fresco, then I planted 60 tiny yew trees as maiden whips, each about 10-12 inches tall, to create smaller ‘gardens within the garden’.” The front garden is twice the size of the back garden, which tapers into a triangle. “We have an acre in front and half an acre behind,” explains Jackie. “There’s a long drive so you can’t see the house at all from the road. On one side we have a spring-fed stream that rises three fields above the house, and on the other a winterborne [a stream that runs dry in summer]. On the stream side, we’ve created a lovely garden full of hydrangeas, Eucryphia nymansensis ‘Nymansay’, irises and lots of candelabra primulas in summer.” The house itself faces due south and is framed by a broad gravel path, lavender hedge and pots of agapanthus. “The formal front garden is laid to lawn with symmetrical island beds on either side,” says Jackie. “It’s contained within a framework of yew, with clipped standards of Ilex aquifolium ‘Argentea Marginata’ and columns of Irish yew offering year-round evergreen interest.” In spring, white Magnolia stellata trees come into flower with a profusion of colourful tulips. “These are followed by the roses in June,” says Jackie. “We have crimson-maroon ‘Tuscany Superb’ and pink ‘Scepter’d Isle’, alongside penstemons, geum ‘Red Wings’, geraniums, euphorbia and clouds of frothy pink Thalictrum delavayi. “From late summer into autumn there’s red-flowered sanguisorba and Panicum virgatum ‘Rubrum’, mingling with persicaria ‘Golden Arrow’, dahlias and tall pinkflowered Eupatorium purpureum, which the bees love.” In 2014 the couple had to dig up part of the garden to lay drainage pipes. “I took the opportunity to create a new terraced area,” says Jackie. “This has a circular layout, with granite setts and inlaid gravel forming a cross surrounded by four quadrant-shaped beds. One end is enclosed with a row of hazel hurdles around a rowan tree, forming a seating area where we like to sit out and drink gin and tonic on summer evenings. “Trellis panels help to enclose the space, providing support for creamy-white
The terrace is a lovely place to sit out and drink gin and tonic on a summer evening