The Yeo Valley Organic Garden

PROFILE

Designer Tom Massey, supported by Sarah Mead

Chelsea history 2018 (Silver Gilt)

Plot MA323

Sponsor Yeo Valley Contractor Landscape Associates

Theme A naturalistic and biodiverse garden, planted mainly with organically grown plants and displaying organic principles

Contact 07862 457630, tommassey.co.uk

Yeo Valley farm’s organic garden in Somerset, created by Sarah and Tim Mead, was the starting point for this gently sloping garden, which offers diverse habitats to wildlife and a rich selection of native and non-native plants. Sheltered on two sides by a tangled hedgerow of wild roses, hawthorn, field maple, blackthorn and hazel, the garden is lightly divided into three zones. At the back, a shady woodland bank, dominated by weeping birches, is underplanted with ferns and perennials. Here water spills from a rusted steel trough, recalling farmyard drinking troughs, into a deep pool beyond the woodland edge overhung with an egg-shaped timber pod suspended from a rusted steel arm. From here the water is channelled down the garden in a sinuous stream, through an open meadow intermingled with perennials, grasses and annuals that in early autumn provide splashes of colour from echinacea, asters, dahlias, heleniums and rudbeckias. Grasses such as Molinia and Miscanthus, in shades of buff and orange, create a harmonious, relaxed feel enhanced by the shaggy profile of pollarded willows.

Hard landscaping is deliberately minimal, with an informal pathway of flat Mendip stones that hug the course of the stream, providing the route up the garden to the timber pod, which offers an elevated view across the whole plot. Charred logs, creating randomised, upright patterns through the garden, represent the importance of soil health in an organic garden – the biochar from felled ash trees is used at Yeo Valley to improve the soil.

PROFILE

Designer Jonathan Snow

Chelsea history 2018 (Silver Gilt), 2019 (Silver)

Plot MA326

Sponsor Trailfinders

Contractor Stewart Landscape Construction

Theme A stylised representation of the landscape, plants and culture of the Himalayan foothills

Contact 020 7371 9475, jonathansnowdesign.co.uk

Jonathan Snow’s plant-hunting trips to Nepal have informed the design of this 22m x 10m garden, which features the plants that occur naturally in the temperate zone of the Himalayas, at between 2,000m and 4,000m above sea level. He recreates the experience of climbing through temperate forests on stony tracks, to the background sounds of tumbling water, and pausing to rest on a stone ledge or trekking on to a timber shelter further up the foothills. This is a garden that reveals itself in a series of moments, thanks to the sinuous path that winds up through the naturalistic planting to the sturdy shelter built in the style of the region’s religious buildings. The path is criss-crossed with man-made rills that draw the frequent floodwaters away from the main route through the hills and into the natural stream that tumbles down from the more densely forested slopes at the back, creating a watery counterpoint to the path. Slabs of sandstone form small bridges across the stream, allowing close-up access to the planting, a mixture of shrubs and perennials that thrive in the moist, mainly acidic conditions of the Himalayas.

Pinus wallichiana and Cedrus deodara, with a smattering of Betula utilis trees, form the canopy layer. In the openings, familiar shrubs such as hydrangeas and rhododendrons are combined with more exotic-looking species such as Schefflera, while large-leaved perennials, such as rodgersias and rheums, add to the exotic feel. Late-summer flowering plants including actaeas, persicarias, thalictrums and aconitums add tones of white, blue and purple to the garden.