Description:Hedges divide and add structure to exuberant planting in this 1½-acre country garden. Spring brings blossom in the orchard, wild flowers and drifts of bulbs, later there’s summer abundance in the kitchen garden and wide densely-planted borders. September’s stronger colours and nectar-rich varieties encourage foraging bees and clouds of butterflies

In the press:Featured in The English Garden and Essex Life magazines

Further details:A garden planted for a long season of interest. Early spring brings fruit blossom in the orchard and masses of daffodils. Later, wild flowers and drifts of tulips, alliums and cammasias all make their appearance as the season progresses towards early summer. Later there are tunnels of sweetpeas, herbs, salads and vegetables in the kitchen garden and plenty to see in the wide densely planted, loosely colour schemed borders which are planted with a wide variety of annuals, perennials, grasses and, in June of course, plenty of roses. Clematis and other climbers add to the picture by scrambling through shrubs, over arches and walls and up through obelisks and an abundance of pots add interest and colour to all areas of the garden. After the usual low rainfall of an Essex summer when all but drought loving plants struggle to survive, suddenly September and October bring a little more moisture and with it the stronger colours of dahlias and salvias, which together with plenty of nectar-rich varieties of sedums and asters, encourage foraging bees and, on sunny late summer days, clouds of butterflies. Grasses and swathes of nerines, colchicums, crocus and other autumn bulbs reappear to complete the long season of colour and interest.