About Cotswold FArm GArden
On the side of a wooded hill, streams trickle down through mottled grey rocks into a garden filled with moisture-loving plants. Their leaves arch over shimmering pools of bright, clear water in a secluded haven nestled at the lowest point of a Cotswold garden. This acre-large plot overlooks a patchwork valley of fields and woods, with a view out to the Marlborough Downs. At 700ft (213m) in elevation, Cotswold Farm Garden lies in what can be a cold spot. Exposed to late frosts and strong winds, yew trees around the garden’s margins create a natural shelter. A pocket of milder air allows spring flowering water plants to thrive on the marshy ground, where the heavy limestone soil retains moisture. In April, the bog garden area is awash with vivid blossom and the sharp green of new growth, within an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The splash of tiny waterfalls echoes as small springs babble and flow into the bowl-shaped bog. Here, the streams change into narrow meandering pools, which wind here and there through clumps of water-loving marsh marigold and stands of tall candelabra primroses. They form a loose ring of water traversed by large, flat boulders. These act as small bridges and stepping stones, with loosely defined paths circling and criss-crossing the space. The garden is reached by a gentle incline of rocky steps mimicking the natural terrace of a craggy, wooded slope and planted with more plants which flourish in the shade. Looking out, hints of a wild meadow, orchard and woodland stretch beyond. This beautiful garden of dappled light and water is the project of Trish Maycock, who lives close by as a tenant of the farm. She has created a naturalistic space in a tranquil refuge governed by water. Having no garden of her own with her small cottage, she started helping out in the main garden. She quickly rediscovered the old bog garden, which was overgrown and forgotten.
Challenging project
“One day, I looked in,” she explains. “It seemed promising, but was completely overgrown. You would have needed a machete to get through it, so I asked if I could do a little work on it. It quickly became a bit of an obsession.” The previous owner had become too elderly to get down to this part of the garden, which had not been touched for 30 years. It has proved to be an intensive project; one which Trish has been working on for two years. A third of the bog garden was covered in rambling, shrubby honeysuckle, which had to be completely dug out. It was also infested with pernicious giant hogweed and a tough sedge, which had blocked and clogged the waterways. “All the water flows were choked up, and the stepping stones were misplaced and kicked over,” she says. “I started by just trying to excavate the paths, removing accumulated growth. My method was to throw a fork at the ground and, if it bounced, I would excavate the stone beneath.”
Her hard work unearthed two man-made ponds, the stepping stones and paths which create several ways to walk through the garden, making it seem larger and more complex. A small building was rescued from a wilderness of ivy. A square 1930s limestone pump house, with a pyramid-shaped roof of grey slates, was renovated to provide a tool shed. Trish’s restoration of the garden proved a challenge. The boggy ground meant wheelbarrows could not be used, and all the excavated material had to be carried off by hand in trugs and buckets. Much of the weeding required standing knee-deep in water, but it was still a task she relished. “Restoring the paths and water flows was a fascinating process; finding the old routes of the water, then seeing the primulas and other surviving plants come through after the clearance was a wonderful reward.”
Spreading colour
She discovered one small bed with a dozen or so Primula pulverulenta, a statuesque species that sends up knee-high stems above a rosette of long green leaves. Three or four tiers of small cerise blooms surround the stalk in whorls of colour. Each flower has a deep red eye that creates a glowing effect, lighting up the dappled shade. She gently dug up their seedlings and spread them about the garden, creating additional colonies of hot pink which reflect brightly alongside the water. These self-seed freely in the wet soil, creating larger and larger swathes of pink. White drumstick Primula denticulata form smaller groups among them. These slightly shorter primulas have ball-shaped heads of tightly clustered flowers atop clear stems, reminiscent of alliums. Handsome and striking, they will thrive in any garden where the soil does not dry out in summer. She also rescued globe flowers, Trollius europeus, embedded in a carpet of ground elder. She cleaned the roots of any remnants of the weed before planting them in clear ground where they could thrive and be better appreciated. One of the most beautiful wetland plants native to the UK, the buttercup-yellow flowers form an almost perfect sphere above delicate feathered foliage. It is a rare wild flower to find this far south, being more widespread in Scotland and Wales. Common spotted orchids have also set up home. “They have sort of drifted in of their own accord and seem to like growing in association with the ornamental plants,” says Trish. These and the hundreds of self-sown primulas jostle for space with golden water marigolds, white Iris sibirica and
lemon-yellow hemerocallis. Aven, ‘Leonard’s Variety’ dips its dainty salmon pink, bell-shaped flowers towards the water. “This is one of my favourite plants because it’s really pretty,” she says. “It was originally from the step garden that leads down to the bog garden. “It was being dug up to be thrown away, so I rescued it.” A group of deep red trilliums, also established from specimens found elsewhere in the higher terraces, form a cluster of blooms among young, curling ferns. They have upright flower buds, which look like narrow spikes when closed and open out into unusual three-pronged blooms.
Creating cover
Among the rocky steps, ferns unfurl from the ground in April, and on the margins of the water, larger leaved plants begin to expand their foliage. “I resisted planting gunnera for a while because I didn’t want it to take over, but there was a big empty patch that was the perfect spot for one,” she explains. “Now we have it, but I do try to keep it small.” She has also established a big patch of darmera. “I like it because it has a strange flower that comes up before the leaf,” she adds. This otherworldly skin-pink blossom appears on top of a snaking, fleshy, rusty-brown stem covered in fine bristles. When the leaves appear in summer, they are large and round like parasols, giving it its common name of umbrella plant. Here and there, unusually large snails can be spotted traversing the leaves and rocks. These are Roman snails, Helix pomatia. Much larger than common garden snails, they have a sandier colouring and delicate cream stripes. They are the largest species of snail in the UK and are often associated with areas where Roman settlements once stood. It is thought the invaders introduced them as a food source. They are only found in small pockets, such as here at the farm garden. “They are more of an attraction than a pest,” says Trish. As a protected species, they are allowed to thrive in the damp conditions. They prosper on the thick clay and limestone soil, known as Cotswold brash. The bog garden takes full advantage of the characteristics of its location: the water, the wild flowers and the woods. It is a space that is constantly being challenged and encroached, but made more lovely by the ingress of nature. The result of one woman’s curiosity and determination, it has blossomed into a lush oasis of plants and colour adding to the beauty of the farm garden as spring unfolds.
Cotswold Farm Garden rolls down four terraces of limestone rock, diffusing into the wet bog garden at its lowest point. The acre of garden is set into a larger estate of 450 acres, with an Arts and Crafts house of grey stone at its heart. Owner Iona Birchall opens the gardens annually for the National Garden Scheme on Saturday and Sunday, 9 and 10 June 2018. Once a simple farmhouse, the house was redesigned by architects Sydney Barnsley and Norman Jewson in the 1920s, after being purchased by Iona’s husband’s grandparents. The gardens were also redesigned by Jewson in the 1920s, and work began on them in the 1930s. Collections of structured box topiary feature in the front courtyard of the house and mark the entrances to terraces as the garden descends. The three main levels include a large croquet lawn, formal lily ponds, walkways along herbaceous borders and a shrub garden. The terraces are walled by grey limestone, and a stone gate to one side leads down the step garden, recently redesigned as a winter walk, with late winter and early spring flowering shrubs. At the foot of this descent is a small garden of trimmed topiary, and beyond, the wilder reaches of the bog garden. A wood which is known as ‘the little forest’ creates a natural border, thinning out into the mixed yews and shrubs that surround the bog garden.