A garden of sensitive design

Press, 8 March 1984, Page 16

A garden of sensitive design

Mr and Mrs Keith Innes have now made their fourth garden and this is the one which has given them greatest enjoyment and satisfaction.

About six years ago they moved to a quiet back section of about 60 perches in the Bryndwr area, which many years ago had been the site of an old dairy farm. In exceptionally wet and boggy winter conditions, the positions of the paths were pegged out, small trees were planted, and the new garden began to take shape. Mrs Innes designed the i'arden on fairly formal ines, with paths and vistas which beckon and entice, leading one on a gentle journey of exploration around the garden. By contrast, the planting is delightfully soft and informal, but each plant has been sensitively considered for the contribution it makes to the design of the whole garden, the form of the plant, leaf texture, the colour tones of the leaves and flowers, and its companionable association with other plants have all been given much deliberation.

The basic concept for the design of the garden has been influenced by the English gardens of Hidcote and Sissinghurst, which in turn owe their origin to the period of the Arts and Crafts Movement at the end of the last century. But the formal lines of the garden together with the statuary and topiary reflect those of Dutch gardens, with a touch of France in the rose garden. The basic design for the wooden summer house was adapted from an American book on garden design. Old roses form the core of Mrs Innes’ gardening interest. The rosery is on the sunny north-facing side of the garden where the climing roses are entwined round sturdy wrought iron arches, and the underplanting has a purple theme.

the path leads to a pergola where one is gently deflected to the least formal part of the garden, designed as a woodland garden for spring with early flowering shrubs and rhododendrons, added to which are underplantings of hostas, trilliums, erythroniums and other bulbs.

It is also designed for autumn colour where Mrs Innes has planted species of the rowan family, another great favourite of hers. This year, Sorbus cashmeriana has produced three beautiful bracts of large white berries with subtle blue-grey markings, which look like delicate marble carvings. Sorbus vilmorinii is her special delight with its fine leaves and gorgeous autumn colouring.

Around the next corner is a part of the garden which probably gives the Innes family most pleasure. It is a cool blue border which mostly reaches its peak in high summer. Spring begins in this part of the garden with masses of blue forget-me-nots, followed by iris, lavender, agapanthus, sal-, vias and hostas. towards autumn caryopteris and bright blue ceratostigma ap-

pear. From the blue border one is enticed along a side path to a shady white garden, this terminates at one end with a garden seat and at the other with the summer house. Here are white peonies, roses, aquilegias, cimicifuga and many other plants with white leaves or fowers. One of these, Veronica virginica alba was specially imported from England. On arches and pergolas are climbing roses and clematis, with roses and honeysuckle clothing the summer house.

The path brings one back again to the house along an unusual but most successful border based on creams, buff and bronze with a touch of orange-red. The background to this scheme is the purple hazelnut, corylus purpurea. Mrs Innes has always wanted to grow a purple beech tree but lack ofispace has dictated the use} if the hazelnut which has a very

similar leaf. Other plants which add to the over-all effect are doronicums, crown imperials, buff kniphofia, “Buff Beauty” rose, Ludlow and Sherriffs semidouble tree peony, lilies, Jerusalem sage, Yellow thalictrum, day lilies, heleniums and many more.

The garden is not yet finished. There remain small finishing touches to be made to paving and planting. A beautiful and much admired symphoricarpus has had to be moved since it was growing too enthusiastically and obscuring the basic lines of the small yew hedges. And a rose which has sulked for six years and has always been granted a reprieve, at last has been discarded.

One small problem may have been solved. Mrs Innes found that the tulips in the small lawn bed to the front of the house do not seem to grow well in the same soil for two consecutive years. She is therefore planning to rotate two sets, growing them in pots in alternate years. Although much logical thought and careful precision have gone into the making of this garden, there is also emotional warmth. Other members of the family have contributed their skills to its construction. Mr and Mrs Innes’ son, Andrew, laid the brickwork for the low walls and gate archway, and their son-in-law Peter Dunn, made the tall wrought iron garden gate and the rose arches and standards. Several of the plants such as the Pyrus salicifolia “Pendula” in the white garden are old friends, having travelled from one garden to another with them. The Japanese anemones, red lychnis and other plants came from her grandmother’s garden, which many years ago Mr and Mrs Innes cared for at the beginning of their marriage. The development of the garden has been exactly mirroring the improvements which Mr Innes has made to the old house. When both are finished they will complement each other beautifully.