Garden
The Garden.
The wall encloses roughly 2 acres of land; that’s roughly a football pitch or 15 tennis courts. There is an additional 2.5 acres outside so there are plantings outside and inside the wall.
The broad coastal strip of Suffolk is very dry, especially in late summer. The soil here varies from a sandy loam at the top of the drive to a medium clay loam in the walled garden. Some of it is bordered with woodland trees and none of it is wet or even decently moist in July, August and often September. Neither is it acid, though I have tried to lower the PH of my garden on the boundary by applying Ammonium sulphate over the years. Our planting (and the plants we sell) reflects this and you will find an absence of ericaceous plants here.
Having bought the site in 1992, we repaired and made good the wall, all 400 yards of it. At that time there was nothing growing within it. With the wall looking good, the time came to plan the garden and over the next few years we set about planting yew hedges and building a pond, pergola and paths. Within 4 years the yew had grown higher than eye level, and at that time people really had to walk round to see what was round the corner. It had served its purpose of breaking the area up.
Following the exclusion of deer and rabbits by fencing the boundary, planting has been almost continuous since we arrived. First we planted a range of shrubs including many different Pittosporums and tall growing evergreen Hoheria. Along one wall we created a yellow border in which there are a few exceptions inc Pittosporum Tom Thumb, where the purple contrasts beautifully with its neighbours. Later came inter-planting of perennials in mixed borders, and a perennial border backed with yew in a style similar to that found at Sunningdale nurseries over 35 yers ago and planted by Graham Stuart Thomas.
The raised pond has matured and the few thrived so that there are now over 100 common goldfish. Periodically, the heron descends, but it doesn’t like the style of the raised edges and after a week or two of mediocre success, it hunts elsewhere.
The temptation for nurseries with gardens is to pinch the gardener in the spring when the nursery gets busy and this is just at the time when most work is required in the garden. We have one part time member of staff who works entirely in the garden and keeps it under control. He receives sporadic help from the nursery especially when there is major work to be done. Planting continues where little had been done before and those areas which require regeneration, either by desire for a change or to replace plants which had outgrown their stations.
The wall encloses roughly 2 acres of land; that’s roughly a football pitch or 15 tennis courts. There is an additional 2.5 acres outside so there are plantings outside and inside the wall.
The broad coastal strip of Suffolk is very dry, especially in late summer. The soil here varies from a sandy loam at the top of the drive to a medium clay loam in the walled garden. Some of it is bordered with woodland trees and none of it is wet or even decently moist in July, August and often September. Neither is it acid, though I have tried to lower the PH of my garden on the boundary by applying Ammonium sulphate over the years. Our planting (and the plants we sell) reflects this and you will find an absence of ericaceous plants here.
Having bought the site in 1992, we repaired and made good the wall, all 400 yards of it. At that time there was nothing growing within it. With the wall looking good, the time came to plan the garden and over the next few years we set about planting yew hedges and building a pond, pergola and paths. Within 4 years the yew had grown higher than eye level, and at that time people really had to walk round to see what was round the corner. It had served its purpose of breaking the area up.
Following the exclusion of deer and rabbits by fencing the boundary, planting has been almost continuous since we arrived. First we planted a range of shrubs including many different Pittosporums and tall growing evergreen Hoheria. Along one wall we created a yellow border in which there are a few exceptions inc Pittosporum Tom Thumb, where the purple contrasts beautifully with its neighbours. Later came inter-
The raised pond has matured and the few thrived so that there are now over 100 common goldfish. Periodically, the heron descends, but it doesn’t like the style of the raised edges and after a week or two of mediocre success, it hunts elsewhere.
The temptation for nurseries with gardens is to pinch the gardener in the spring when the nursery gets busy and this is just at the time when most work is required in the garden. We have one part time member of staff who works entirely in the garden and keeps it under control. He receives sporadic help from the nursery especially when there is major work to be done. Planting continues where little had been done before and those areas which require regeneration, either by desire for a change or to replace plants which had outgrown their stations.