Country gardens may have lovely surroundings and space from neighbours but it’s not all the good life as I discovered on a visit to Berrys Place Farm.
Country gardening also brings wildlife beyond the usual slugs and snails, and rabbits in particular were troubling Anne Thomas. I saw them on the track approaching the garden at Churcham and they’ve been making their presence felt in her two-acre plot.
Newly planted roses had been nibbled, the vegetable garden had needed fencing off and here, and there she had resorted to wire cages over plants.
“We’ve got a big rabbit problem this year. They’re everywhere,” says Anne. “I think ‘I’m sure I planted something there’ and it’s gone.”
It appears that rabbits don’t have a taste for lupins though and walking around I had distinct lupin envy. I love lupins but struggle to grow them thanks to my resident molluscs. I’ve nursed two plants for a couple of years. One is finally flowering. The other has been attacked.
There was no such problem at Berrys Place Farm. Pink, purple and two-tone, they formed huge clumps of colour.
“They’re one of my favourites,” said Anne. “They sort of take you back to your childhood.”
The garden has been developed over the past 37 years by Anne and her husband, Gary, from little more than grass, moving through rugby pitch and football field for their two sons to the informal garden of today.
Borders are loosely colour themed – yellows, including Rosa ‘Tottering-by-Gently’, corydalis, ligularia, phlomis and lysimachia, going on to pinks with phlox, and Clematis ‘Nelly Moser’ climbing through Crataegus ‘Paul’s Scarlet’.
Roses are a feature of the garden both in the borders and on a long pergola where they are teamed with clematis.
The slow season – everything is about three or four weeks later than normal – meant I was too early to see them at their best but the number of buds promised a good show by the time the garden opens for the National Garden Scheme.
The pergola is smothered in white roses – ‘Bobby James’, ‘Snow Goose’ and ‘Wedding Day’ – and underplanted with ‘Jacqueline du Pre’, Anne’s favourite.
I remembered the pond and its mass of sisyrinchium from my previous visit many years ago but the wildlife pond was new. Fringed with yellow iris, grasses and with waterlilies just about to flower, it is a peaceful spot.
Anne describes this season as ‘a turning point’ in the garden. The cold winter and, in particular, the wet, which kept one border under water for weeks, led to the loss of some established shrubs. The roses too are nearing the end of their lives and she’s beginning to think about replacing them.
“It’s coming to the point where a lot of the beds want rejuvenating. We’ve got lots of roses but they want replacing.”
But as she says, “Gardens change and evolve.”
It will be interesting to see what the next chapter brings.
Berrys Place Farm at Churcham, near Gloucester, is open for the National Garden Scheme on Saturday, June 19, Sunday June 20, Wednesday June 23 and Thursday June 24, from 11-5pm on all days. Admission is £3.50 with lunches and homemade teas available. More information is available on the website.
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