We are currently in the middle of refreshing our garden. I want it to look neat and lovely from the windows, with a small raised bed for a kitchen garden, flowers of course for vases, and a stylish space for entertaining by the pool. I have long-admired English gardeners with their seeming ease and dexterity of plantings: gorgeously unruly flowers, and vegetables in manicured beds. I was thrilled to find an article in House & Garden of Cambridge's landscape-architect, radio host, and columnist Bunny Guinness who frankly never disappoints, always inspiring and makes a weekend gardener announce with great confidence and sincerity to her husband: 'Of course, you know... we can espalier the apple trees next to the pottager.'
Bunny's half acre formal garden surrounds her charming stone house, along with a kitchen garden, gravel and stone paths, espaliered apple trees with glorious riot of flowers in and out of the vegetables, and another eight acres of orchard, including twin avenues of pleached hornbeam in the pool garden, woodland, and pasture for livestock.
"I tend not to put all the similar things together, as you're supposed to do, so I 'll grow a few runner beans here, a few there, and throw everything in together.
It seems to work."
"My husband farmed before he became an accountant, and we have always had livestock, so we have our own meat and eggs, and I grow a fair bit of what we need in the vegetable garden. We eat what's in season."
"More than anything else, though, the garden is an antidote to the pressures of a busy working life. I need my gardening days. Gardening really takes your mind away from everything else, and it gives me the exercise and fresh air that I need. And there's always something new to try. You always think you're about to get to the stage when the garden feels finished, but it never is."
To view the entire House & Garden article written by Clare Foster and photography by Andrew Montgomery please view here. Enjoy!
