Garden

Garden

The raised beds in the kitchen garden are used to grow vegetables, fruit, herbs and cut flowers for the kitchen. The beds are designed to look good and be practical, and the high beech hedges provide shelter from the wind and give the space a sense of enclosure.

This area is a real suntrap, which makes it ideal for growing a range of herbs and vegetables. The borders at the entrance to the kitchen garden are planted with classic cottage garden favourites like daylily, daisies, asters and primulas. The pergola supports climbers like clematis, honeysuckle and hops to add interest, and in summer we plant sweet peas for extra scent and colour. Mixing flowers and edibles helps to attract beneficial insects which pollinate the vegetables and help to keep the aphids and slugs in check… we don’t use any pesticides, instead relying on natural predators.

Depending on the season, we will be harvesting lettuce, parsley, strawberries, raspberries, beans, courgettes and many more fresh ingredients from the kitchen garden to use in salads, soups and sandwiches. Having a vegetable patch so close to the café means we can measure the distance from plot to plate in metres rather than miles!

Wildflower Meadow

Did you know that more than 97% of wildflower meadows in the UK have been lost since the 1950s? These beautiful habitats are important because the support a range of plants and animals. We’re doing our best to create a small area of meadow in this part of the garden. 

Our patch of native wildflowers has been purposely seeded to create a low maintenance, species rich habitat. The grasses and flowers provide interest and colour from spring right through the summer. We cut the vegetation back every year after the plants have produced seed. Once the cuttings have dried slightly (this allows the seeds to drop to the ground) we rake up the loose material. Removing the cut vegetation helps to keep the fertility of the soil relatively low, which suits many of the wildflowers we want to grow here.

The meadow is now almost 10 years old and the mix of flowers has gradually changed with time. There are orchids slowly establishing, growing alongside red campion, wild carrot, knapweed, ribwort, yarrow and mallow.
Take a walk through the mown paths and see how many different wildflowers, butterflies, bees and other insects you can spot.

Woodland Garden

This a space for enjoying nature and art. We have landscaped the woodland garden and planted a range of native trees and shrubs. There are clusters of birch trees to provide structure, as well as ash, hazel and rowan. Smaller trees and shrubs add interest and provide autumn fruit and berries for the birds. These include elder, blackthorn, holly and wild roses. We mow paths around trees, but leave large areas of grass to grow long, and ‘weeds’ like nettles and mugwort thrive on the mounds.

The different ‘layers’ of planting created by the trees, shrubs and groundcover provide a diverse range of habitats and feeding opportunities for the local wildlife. There are voles and shrews in the long grass, butterflies feeding on the flowers, and toads can sometimes be found in the damper areas. Birds use the hedging, trees and shrubs for foraging and nesting. You might see blue tits, robins, blackbirds, wrens and house sparrows as you wander among the trees. 

While most of this area is relatively low maintenance, we like to keep the hedging that surrounds it clipped to provide some structure and a backdrop for the sculptures.

Butterfly Border

This border is designed to attract butterflies by providing nectar-rich flowers from early spring through to the end of autumn. In spring, there are primrose and pulmonaria, then buddleja, nepeta, monarda and achillea in early summer and later sedums and asters. This means there is food for the butterflies from the early in the year when they emerge from hibernation to the end of the season as they prepare for migration or overwintering.

It’s important to remember that butterflies need more than nectar to thrive. Take a look around the rest of the garden and you’ll see patches of nettles, meadow grasses and ivy. They might look like weeds, but these are the larval foodplants of species like the small tortoiseshell, red admiral, peacock and holly blue and have been left for the caterpillars.

One of the benefits of a border designed to attract butterflies is that it attracts a whole range of other wildlife too. Bees come to forage among the flowers, the diverse range of plants helps to build a structured habitat for insects like ground beetles (which eat slugs) and ladybirds (whose larvae eat greenfly), and at the end of the gardening year we leave the seed heads to feed the birds.

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