Arts & Crafts Garden, Herefordshire
This garden is set in beautiful rural landscape near Ledbury, around an elegant Arts & Crafts style house, recently sensitively restored & extended. The mature gardens were well cared for and parts needed only a light touch to rework the planting into a more harmonious ensemble and reflect the owners’ preferences.
Other parts of the garden were due for a more major reorganisation to tie in with the construction of a new oak framed garage. We took advantage of this opportunity to create a sheltered seating & dining area with raised beds and a gorgeous cedar framed glasshouse for times when it’s not quite warm enough to be outside, but reading a paper or drinking a glass of wine among the tomato plants is still appealing.
The garden had strong structure in parts with terracing and some mature hedges, and we picked up on this with new hedging in both Yew and Beech, as well as Yew and Beech ‘sentinels’ to define different areas and create visual enclosure without solid barriers. We also designed a handsome oak pergola to partially screen the seating area from the driveway.
The view down the pergola frames loungers on an entirely new terrace. Here it is as though the clients have been given a part of their garden that wasn’t previously theirs to enjoy. A vegetable patch was moved to the adjacent paddock, and an out-of-place Eucalyptus felled to open up the marvellous views and really connect the garden with the surrounding landscape. A stone terrace looks over a generous new pond, and many a relaxing hour can be whiled away watching the fish and the wildlife, lulled by the bubbling fountain.
This garden was already rich in wildlife, and we designed with this in mind. The pond surround for example is edged with stacked logs which not only form a stunning visual pattern, but are also highly sought-after as habitat for frogs, toads, newts and even a weasel!
Planting throughout is diverse and luxuriant but always in keeping with the setting. Generous use of bulbs and herbaceous perennials ensures a colourful and ever-changing display through the seasons.
Cedar glasshouse from Gabriel Ash