With the plethora of gardening advice around it’s easy to imagine that there’s only one way of doing things but the garden at Downton House proves that ‘rules’ are made to be broken.
Indeed, as owner Jane Kilpatrick points out, plants don’t read books. She prefers to experiment and will try any plant a couple of times before admitting defeat.
“I do think people can be very rule bound with gardens and I think that’s completely wrong,” she tells me as we look around her Painswick plot. “I think a garden is for you and you need to experiment and you need to enjoy it. Gardening is about learning.”
That said, she does choose her plants carefully and always looks at where they grow in the wild to determine whether they will suit her garden – “I think the big problem that everybody makes, is they don’t find out where a plant comes from.”
It’s particularly important with the challenging ground she has: “My soil is thin Cotswold brash, which is incredibly fast draining partly because it’s a sloping site. Every single thing I plant has to be drought tolerant.”
Even so, she has things that I always thought needed damper conditions, such as geums but she assures me that some will cope including ‘Bell Bank’, which appears to be thriving.
Many of the plants reflect her interests as a writer – she’s written books on Chinese plants, those introduced by French missionary botanists, and galanthophiles, or snowdrop fanatics (you can read about The Galanthophiles here).
“I tend to plant things I’m writing about so that I get the photograph I need,” she says.
Many of the plants, therefore, come from China, including a jaw-droppingly good example of Rosa xanthina ‘Canary Bird’. I had never seen one so big and it was smothered in flowers.
There are many peonies at Downton House, including P. tenuifolia that has feathery foliage quite unlike that of the more commonly grown peonies, and P. rockii, which was just starting to open its semi-double blooms.
When it comes to colour, Jane favours pinks and purples offset by limey green and gold. Orange isn’t found, although there’s an area of apricot/peach shades, and she dislikes what she describes as “ice pink”.
Colour choice is important be it in similar shades being repeated through borders – a way of unifying the one third of an acre plot – or using contrast to create drama, and there are lots of shrubs and perennials that are chosen for their bright foliage rather than any flower power.
“A lovely tapestry of greens is fine if you’re right up close but most of us are looking at our gardens from a window or you’re hurtling past in the morning,” she says. ” You don’t want to look out at the garden and think it’s a bit dull. I look out and it’s ‘Wow!’ because there’s bright foliage.”
Believing that anything that grows well should be grown a lot, Jane has lots of geraniums, in particular different varieties of G. phaeum. Although commonly recommended for shade, hers are thriving in full sun.
Geranium pyrenaicum ‘Bill Wallis’ is a favourite and meanders through many of the borders.
Jane has been developing the walled garden since her late parents bought it back in 1999 and it’s an ongoing project.
“There’s always new plants new ideas, and you can always perfect your vision.”
Downton House, Painswick, is open for the National Garden Scheme on May 11 and 12, 2022. For more details, see the website.
Read about more of my gardening visits here and sign up for an email alert about future posts.
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Jane’s writings are very enjoyable.
I’ve read only ‘The Galanthophiles’ which was very good.