Magical midwinter

For the past 14 years, this farmhouse has been home to James Williams and his family. Dusted with frost, its immaculately kept garden takes on an ethereal beauty

With formal features and strong silhouettes, this garden looks beautiful veiled in winter white

KEY FACTS

CHARACTER OF GARDEN A country garden, surrounded by acres of farmland. The look is soft and informal, with neat evergreens in places to give a stronger outline. Garden designer Robin Templar Williams (robin williams.co.uk) updated the planting scheme

SIZE Two acres

ASPECT South-facing, but in a frost pocket

SOIL Chalk

OWNERS James Williams, Charlotte and daughter Phoebe, since 2003

HOUSE A Georgian farmhouse, with some Victorian additions

OPEN Not open to the public

Manor Farm sits comfortably in the folds of the south-west Wiltshire Downs, a handsome Georgian farmhouse with Victorian additions surrounded by acres of farmland and approached by a winding lane. The farm has been the home of James and Charlotte, and their daughter Phoebe, since 2003. ‘I bought it on impulse,’ says James. ‘Charlotte and I were living in London but wanted to move back to the south-west where our families are.

Both our families had been farmers in the West Country and we wanted to buy a farm. This one came up for sale, and I thought that if I didn’t buy it then, it might be 10 or 20 years until another one came on to the market.’ James bought it from plantsman and garden historian Martin ‘Min’

Wood, who had made the garden his own.

It took three years to renovate the house, and James often questioned the wisdom of his investment while he travelled up and down from London as the work was being carried out. In 2003 the family moved in, and James started work on the garden. But with no gardening experience, he needed a plan. ‘I kept in close contact with Min, and even now he pops in to see what’s going on every few weeks.’ James also enlisted garden designer Robin Templar-williams. ‘I told Robin I wanted a garden with atmosphere and offered him a list of plants that I liked. He returned with plans and a planting list, and I took that as a kind of drawing board from which to develop ideas of my own.

‘It was a bit like painting by numbers,’ continues James. ‘We bought lots of plants and set about filling up the borders.’ At first, there were blocks of plants but these have softened as plants happily weave in and out and self-seed. Each spring James spends two days working out which seedlings to leave and which to pull out. ‘It’s an important job,’ he says. ‘My favourite garden is Le Jardin Plume in Normandy, particularly the potager and the borders. I’d like to think this garden is a little like that, with a lot of self-sown plants, slightly scruffy but atmospheric.’

In summer the garden is a heady mix of perennials: ‘I like tall, airy verticals, plants that are slightly transparent so that you can catch glimpses of the garden beyond,’ says James. This choice is useful because, in winter, the garden is still working hard, with seedheads, hedges and grasses offering vital food and shelter. The garden is in a frost pocket, so often the family wake up to a garden transformed by glistening ice crystals encrusting every honey-hued stem and spiky seedhead.

‘To have a successful winter garden you need evergreens to give structure, and cyclamen and snowdrops for colour,’ James explains. ‘I have three hours’ help a week weeding in the growing months and taking out soggy rotting vegetation as plants die back. We keep as much as we can over winter, so when plants lose their appeal we cut them back, starting in November through to March when we cut back the grasses ready for new growth.’

The boundary between the garden and fields beyond is an unusual hedge: a mix of beech and cotoneaster, which Min planted. Together, James, Min and gardening friends have meticulously measured and cut it so that it undulates, mirroring the downlands beyond. Just inside the hedge,

James has planted rows of Pyrus ‘Beech Hill’, their branches arching into the cold, blue winter sky. And either side of a gate leading to the wild flower meadow James planted six Betula utilis

var. jacquemontii.

As you round the corner by an old wattle and daub wall, you enter the more formal canal garden with a view of the front of the farmhouse beyond. ‘Min told me I have to keep this part of the garden sharp, no floppy grasses over the flagstones and crisp box topiary to contrast with the wilder borders. I feel lucky to have his expert input.’

James has used a local artisan to make the rustic fences that separate different parts of the garden. From the canal, you enter the walled garden where grass paths meet the generous summer borders of

Verbena hastata, Bidens aurea ‘Hannay’s Lemon Drop’, various asters and Sanguisorba and

Persicaria. Here the walls protect plants from icy winter winds. The vegetable garden is Charlotte’s place, where she rotates organic produce for the family amid cut-flower blooms, ensuring they are subsistent in vegetables all summer.

The garden continues to evolve organically, resting in winter before another explosion of wild and romantic planting. ‘A friend who is an artist told me that it was like an artist’s garden,’ says James. ‘I’m happy with that.’ Right: Stone pineapples top the wall separating the main garden and kitchen garden. In the foreground, evergreen Buxus sempervirens, sculptural Acer palmatum and ornamental grasses provide good year-round texture, while through the gate, the beech hedge’s winter tones provide a splash of colour. The dramatic skeleton of Pyrus communis ‘Williams’ Bon Chrétien’, trained over an arch, is a surprising bonus

The formal canal garden that, on the advice of his predecessor, James keeps tidy and angular with sharp edges and neat box spheres