My English Home & Garden

Horticulturist and television presenter Poppy Okotcha shares the joy of making the move from London to a house with magical views over the Devonshire countryside

How did you find your home?

My partner had seen the property on the market online a couple of years before we decided to move to the area. We had been unsuccessfully searching in Cornwall for about a year, but the day we decided to set our sights on South Devon (where my partner grew up), this property came back on the market. It’s a very old, semidetached, one-bedroom house which made up two of six ‘hovels’ in a row backing onto burgage plots. We viewed it once in the winter, made an offer, then everything was put on hold because of Covid. We moved the following summer.

What made you choose your home and garden?

The view! We are tucked in between back gardens with big views of the valley. The garden really sold the place. It’s magical, and an example of how you can squeeze a productive, ecological garden into an average-sized plot. The house had great potential, too. The internal walls are made from wattle and daub, but all the original features had been stripped out. We wanted to return a feeling of age, craft and character into the space.

What is your interior design inspiration?

I would say it’s an ode to craftsmanship, sustainability and simplicity, and for my partner, who’s an architect, a love of wood. There’s something really alive about items that have been made by a person who loves their craft, items with a human story behind them. It connects us to the creation and value of all these things we think we need. The kitchen countertop is made from reclaimed scaffold boards, and rather than buying new floorboards, we had them flipped and sanded; they are beautiful and we hope they’ll live out a good many more years in this house now.

How does the interior connect to the garden?

The ground floor is below the garden level, so we painted the walls a greenish grey tone (Gregory’s Den by Earthborn paints) to give it a cosy rabbit warren feel, with a great big bookcase along one wall... it’s a place to look inwards, be quiet and learn. The first floor (the living room and kitchen) is connected to the outside by what we have come to call the “sky bridge” – a grand name for a concrete slab that crosses the gap between the house and garden. I’m growing honeysuckle, wild clematis and jasmine on the bridge’s battered railings and I have visions of the scent from the flowers wafting in through the living room door, which we only ever really close in a storm. We’ve hung a big mirror in the living room looking out of the window, to reflect the hilly views. It’s like a painting that changes with the seasons.

Where does your passion for ecological gardening originate?

Simply put, I think it started with my Mum and Grandma (also known as ‘Grandma With The Nice Garden’ when I was little) and ended with me searching for more meaning in life in my early 20s. Having worked as a model for a few years, I was lost and tired; I was looking for a career that would be good for myself, others, and the Earth. Working in the food-growing space ticked all those boxes.

Finally, what are your tips for combining elements of ecological gardening into a quintessentially English garden?

Ecological gardening marries so well with English cottage gardens, which are a huge inspiration to me. For a garden to be sustainable, it needs to be rooted in place. For example, a Mediterranean garden isn’t suited to this rather damp part of the world. Like ecological gardens, traditional cottage gardens were originally spaces that were both beautiful and productive, featuring wild, native flowers as well as chickens and bees. They would have been organic, too, before the widespread use of herbicides and pesticides following the Second World War. But, excitingly, the principles of ecological gardening can be woven into any gardening style. Cottage gardens are just particularly dear to me. Poppy is currently building an online course about ecological gardening and speaking at events and festivals this summer. For more information, visit poppyokotcha.com ■