INSPIRATION IN THE BORDERS
Stephen Baughan started cultivating some of the land around the pottery in 2010. By 2015, there were five floral borders, known as the Hot Bank, Hornbeam Walk, Traditional Perennials, Dahlia and Annuals borders. Here, swathes of purple, orange and yellow flowers spill onto the paths, attracting bees, birds, including long-tailed tits and bullfinches, and butterflies such as Tortoiseshells and Red admirals. The plants include asters, salvias, heleniums, delphiniums, penstemons and ornamental grasses. The Hot Bank, which is particularly vibrant in August, was formed on the rubble left from building the café and shop. Sun-loving plants, such as canna lilies, rudbeckias and red-hot pokers, tumble down the slope, and a copper beech hedge runs along the top. “I wanted a really bright border that flowers from late May to the first frost,” says Stephen. The Annuals border contains 8,500 plants grown from seed, including sunflowers. “I’ve had an interest in gardens since I was six, when I got boxes of seeds, so I’m doing now what I enjoyed as a child,” he explains. “On hot summer days, we didn’t see many people in the shop, but we thought they would come out to look at gardens. It’s gone beyond our expectations. “It has sometimes been a struggle to get across to people that we actually make the pottery, but they can relate to the gardens because they’ve had a go at growing the same things themselves.” The gardens are now part of the Royal Horticultural Society’s National Gardens Scheme.