Hidden surprise
With its secluded courtyard garden, soft pastel planting scheme and soothing water features, this town garden in Altrincham offers a peaceful and restorative retreat
Explore a town garden with a pretty pastel planting scheme
key facts
Character Town garden wrapping around an end of terrace, with a private courtyard garden, box parterre and brimming herbaceous borders Size 0.5 acre Aspect South and west facing Soil Acid and free draining Owners Helen and Robin Russel Fisher, since 1991 House End terrace built in 1840s
Given that Helen Russel Fisher’s garden, set in a leafy suburb of Altrincham, Cheshire, is located at the junction of two roads and wraps around two sides of a mid-19thcentury end of terrace house, you could be forgiven for initially thinking there was little room for originality, or indeed privacy. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
From the moment you step through the garden gate and follow a mellow-coloured Yorkstone path through a front garden burgeoning with borders full of choice shrubs such as Rosa ‘Bonica’ and the cerise-flowering Hibiscus syriacus ‘Hinomaru’, the surprises come thick and fast. These begin with a delightful secluded courtyard garden. Surrounded by old redbrick walls, double hedges of lightly
trimmed cotoneaster and yew, and a west-facing kitchen/garden room, it makes a blissful garden sanctuary. It needs to, for Helen’s job as a children’s nurse in an NHS hospital is immensely rewarding but can also be highly stressful and emotionally draining. ‘Just ten minutes in the garden and I feel completely renewed,’ says Helen, ‘although ten minutes is never enough. There is always something to do, be it weeding, pruning, deadheading… and before you know it an hour has passed. But I love it,’ she adds.
Helen and her husband Robin purchased the property 27 years ago, having previously lived in both London and Sydney, Australia, before returning to Helen’s home town of Altrincham in 1991. ‘The house had not been lived in for some time and had actually been condemned as unfit for habitation. We were aware that it would need a completely new roof and top storey,’ says Helen with a wry smile. ‘But after the brightness of Sydney, we wanted to live in a property that was south-facing for maximum light and located close to my family, and this fitted the bill.’
Back then, the garden was a ‘pretty but overgrown cottage garden, but most of it was either under the shade of a very large beech tree, ➤
or rapidly disappearing beneath rampant rhododendrons and sycamore trees,’ says Helen. It stayed that way for quite some time as Helen and Robin’s initial energies went into fixing the house and raising their three children. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t a gardener at all back then; it was all I could do to contain the weeds, and I needed my mum to tell me which were weeds and which were flowers,’ she says, laughing.
Over time, badminton courts and football pitches came and went, gradually to be replaced by flowerbeds as the children grew up and began to move away. ‘I don’t think there was a specific moment when I said “Right, now let’s tackle the garden”, it simply evolved step by step, until one day I realised that I loved gardening and was beginning to have confidence in what I was doing.’
In 2003 Helen and Robin began the process of redesigning the whole garden, starting off with their own sketches, which a friend then drew up in a form that a landscape gardener could work to. ‘Our designs removed all the existing trees, overgrown rhododendrons and other shrubs, which meant we had little privacy, hence the reason for creating a secluded courtyard garden directly off our newly built kitchen/garden room.’
Today, the courtyard garden is their favourite spot. It combines an intimate mesh of structural formality, soft and colourful herbaceous plantings and modular outdoor furniture for relaxation. The structure is provided by a quadrant box parterre with a stone water feature at its centre. Within each quadrant a single dwarf larch tree, Larix kaempferi ‘Wolterdingen’, provides a glaucous-blue focal point, around which Hidcote lavender, roses, such as ‘Buff Beauty’, bulbs, including tulips, alliums and agapanthus, and a succession of herbaceous perennials offer colour and interest throughout the spring and summer.
‘I prefer pastel shades to hot colours and so tend to use lots of phlox, white and pink foxgloves, dianthus, peonies, sea holly and salvias. I also like what I call ‘free plants’, things like honesty and sweet rocket, Hesperis matronalis, which pop up everywhere and do their own thing with no input from me. Last year, with all the hot weather, one plant that excelled itself was Perovskia ‘Blue Spire’, which is sometimes called Russian sage, and the bees love it too,’ explains Helen.
In the past, she had problems with box blight, Cylindrocladium buxicola, in the parterre. This fungal disease is at its worst in conditions of high ➤
humidity. ‘I reduced the width of the box hedges to just 15cm, so that air can flow right through the hedge and reduce humidity, and it has worked. The parterre is now clear of blight and I ensure the plant’s vigour by regularly feeding and mulching with rich, organic manure,’ says Helen.
Complementing the central parterre, the surrounding redbrick walls play host to a collection of wall shrubs and climbers, again deliberately planted to provide colour and interest from May until October. Among the most striking of these climbers are Solanum laxum ‘Album’, a fine specimen of Trachelospermum jasminoides, Rosa ‘Falstaff’, several clematis, and the highly fragrant Spencer Mix variety of pretty sweet pea Lathyrus odoratus.
Nearby, the flowers of a young Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ reflect creamy light into the courtyard from a mirrored ‘window’, one of several features built into or against the walls, including a stunning vertical mirrored water cascade, which adds constant movement and sound to this tranquil space.
One of the things that makes this garden so successful is the way each section has been carefully designed, so its features, borders and vistas can still be enjoyed, even when you are not actually in the garden. Helen loves to be able to share the garden with those walking by. ‘I like to see neighbours and passers-by admiring the garden. We often exchange a wave and a few words and it all adds to the lovely community spirit in this area,’ she explains.
Every two years, Helen and Robin, along with several other homeowners in the area, open their gardens for the NSPCC, a charity dear to Helen’s heart. ‘We sometimes get up to 500 people viewing the local gardens and I love the interaction with everyone. You also learn so much from fellow gardeners, find solutions to some of your own gardening problems and, of course, there are opportunities to share each other’s plants, too.’
In the area
F Morrey & Son nursery Forest Nursery, Kelsall, Tarporley CW6 0SW. For shrubs, trees and roses. Tel: 01829 751342; morreysnursery.com
Arley Hall nursery Northwich, Cheshire CW9 6NA. ‘If you love herbaceous plants this is the garden to visit. Its double herbaceous borders are truly inspirational,’ says Helen. Tel: 01565 777479; arleyhallandgardens.com