Redesigned Garden
Once formal, this mature garden has been renewed as a haven for calm contemplation, with reflective pools and a meandering woodland walk.
This once formal, mature plot has been thoughtfully relandscaped to suit a modern new home, making the most of glorious garden views from every room
Downsizing does not usually involve demolition but having failed to find a smaller house to suit their needs, David Bulmark and his wife solved the problem by clearing the decks and building a new home on their six-and-a-half-acre site, near Ascot.
The new house was to be a modern affair which would not gel with original formal garden elements, so it was decided that new landscaping was also required. After a friend recommended Abbotswood Garden Design, David invited designer Rob Chew to offer his ideas. ‘It was a lovely space,’ says Rob, ‘and we knew we could do something special.’ The couple wanted a fairly low-maintenance design, with a small kitchen garden. Other than this, ‘we were very open to whatever Rob suggested,’ David says.
As most of the rooms at the rear of the house open on to the garden, Rob devised a scheme that offers interesting vistas through the year, with flowering heathers in winter, rhododendrons in spring, herbaceous perennials in summer and colourful tree foliage in autumn.
The sweeping lawn draws the eye down the garden, where a grove of Himalayan birch trees and a strong
structure of mid-sized shrubs and trees help to visually connect the garden more coherently to its backdrop of established trees. A gate anchored by swoops of dry-stone walling leads to a circuitous walk, past island beds of heathers or ornamental grasses, through the ‘pinetum’ with its large new specimens of Atlas cedar and metasequoia, before leading out another gateway where the route is completed through a wildflower meadow.
A favourite area is the sunken garden, tucked into an awkward space between wings of the house, where a cantilevered deck floats over two reflective pools. Framed by topiary yews and beds of grasses, it has a soundtrack of rustling poplar trees, fulfilling David’s wish for a contemplative area for yoga and relaxation.
Two gardeners from local company The Fourth Room (thefourthroom.co.uk) come in two days a week to keep everything in good order, meaning the couple can simply enjoy the garden. ‘We eat outside all summer, unless it is pouring with rain,’ David says, ‘and almost every day I walk the circuit through the woods and the meadow. We have cancelled all our holidays, because we say that just being here is the holiday.’