Large country garden

This large country garden in Dorset is located in a beautiful rural location and surrounds the house on three sides with some views through to a paddock on the fourth side.  There are expansive open views to the east, while the large walled garden has a more intimate feel and the main garden area around the house is enclosed.

“Amanda was a terrific garden designer to work with: imaginative, a brilliant designer on site and illustrator on paper.  She paid due respect to the history of the garden, adapting the cruciform outline in the main garden that dated back to the 1780s as well as completely re-imagining the approach to the house.  The garden works at scale as well as in intimate corners and we couldn’t be more delighted.” M&M B

As with any large garden that has evolved over time, there were issues with the original layout that needed to be resolved, specifically with regard to entrances and routes through the garden, and a variety of spaces which bore no relation to each other.

MODERN CLASSIC GARDEN

The new layout has created a ‘modern classic’ garden that balances the house, with a gentle formality at the front and a lived-in feel to the main rear garden area.  Breaking through the wall that separated these two spaces has generated better flow, and the garden now has unity from a simplified palette of materials and plants.

The rear garden had been dominated by a ghastly extension added in the 1960s and described by all as the ‘railway station waiting room’. This was reimagined by architects Hackett Holland who have sympathetically updated the house.

RELAXED COUNTRY GARDEN

I felt it was important to create a simple but soft garden which was formal enough to balance the house and create the right ambience for the entrance, while still retaining a more relaxed country garden feel.  Bold yew topiary and avenues of Robinia and pleached hornbeam are balanced by plantings of massed grasses, such as the delicate Melica, and swathes of wildflowers including ox-eye daisies and cow parsley.

WALLED GARDEN

The awkward levels within the walled garden have been sorted and the lawns edged with plantings of meadow flowers to create a link with the landscape beyond while lowering maintenance within this large country garden.  A pleached hornbeam avenue underplanted with grasses and cow parsley frames the view to the paddock beyond.

The far end of the garden is devoted to a kitchen garden with fruit cage, vegetable and cut flower beds, and fruit trees.  Ultimately a greenhouse will sit centrally in the space, giving a wonderful focal point along the length of the path.

This garden was built by Original Landscapes and all the photos were taken by my client.