A glass balustrade ensures safety without compromising on the view - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
Clever design has transformed a difficult Cotswold garden. Words and pictures by Mandy Bradshaw
Gardens on many levels are intrinsically more interesting, with opportunities for changes in mood and different views. However, when the garden is set on the side of Cleeve Hill, the highest point in the Cotswolds, design becomes more challenging.
The usual elements were needed – somewhere to sit out and entertain, easy movement across the site and a garden that sits comfortably in its surroundings – but they had to be worked into a space that rises dramatically from one end to the other.
When leading Gloucestershire designers Graduate Gardeners were brought in to create the garden on the outskirts of Cheltenham, they had little to work with as two extensions and renovations on the house had pretty much destroyed what had been there before.
The biggest problem, designer Ian Morrison explains, was the lack of usable space with only one piece of flat lawn, set higher up the hill above the house, and the rest of the ground a steep slope.
‘We had to do a lot of excavating destruction first before we could start to construct,’ he says.
His brief was simple: a swimming pool, more of a garden around the house, and better access and parking.
The parking was a particular problem with a long, steep drive and nowhere to manoeuvre at the top making it necessary to reverse back down to turn in a neighbour’s drive. Getting heavily laden delivery lorries to the site before more space was made was extremely difficult.
Planting softens the paving and large retaining wall - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
Lavender edges the wildflower meadow on top of the retaining wall - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
It was clear that the hill was going to have to be ‘pushed back’ and held in place with a retaining wall even though Cleeve Hill is constantly shifting because of its clay subsoil. The team brought in a structural engineer to give advice at the start of the project.
The resulting 60m drystone wall is carefully angled and tapers up from a broad base. As a result, the force of the hill against it pushes it further in, anchoring it more firmly despite having no foundations. It also acts as a soakaway, diverting water from the hillside into a drainage system.
That such a feat of engineering should also look beautiful is down to the skill of the team who constructed it using 300 tonnes of Cotswold stone, laying them in a formal, contemporary style. It was a job that took four people around three months to build, time well spent on what is one of the garden’s main features.
The rest of the hard landscaping around the house has an Italian feel – a nod to the owners’ background. Beautiful Italian porcelain is used for paving in front of the house and in the pool and entertaining space, which has an outdoor fire for chilly evenings.
The garden has wonderful views over the Cotswold countryside - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
Removing three large cedars and installing a glass, frameless balustrade along the front of the house gives uninterrupted views across Cheltenham to the Malverns and Wales.
The now substantial parking area is screened by clipped yew hedges, and these are repeated to create smaller ‘rooms’, which contain all the formal planting.
‘We've concentrated the planting around the house to soften the amount of hard landscaping,’ explains Ian.
There's a formal style to the area in front of the house with clipped box and a simple planting palette - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
Salvia nemerosa 'Ostfriesland' - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
The front door now opens onto an area of topiary box and four box-edged beds filled with a simple planting combination of penstemon, salvias, alliums, and echinacea. A pair of Italian cypress add to the Mediterranean feel and a Lutyens-style bench is used for pots of seasonal colour.
Salvias – ‘Purple Rain’ and ‘Ostfriesland’ – are repeated throughout this part of the garden. They’re in a raised bed under an existing acer along with Japanese anemones, geranium and ferns.
They also feature in a small border that softens one wing of the house where their purple blooms contrast with the white of Hydrangea arborescens ‘Strong Annabelle’.
‘Salvia is probably one of the best perennial plants you can put in a garden,’ says Ian. ‘If you've planted two types of salvia, you can get flowers from May right through to October.’
Wildflowers and lavender run up to the retaining wall - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
Rosemary and an olive add a Mediterranean feel to the planting - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
A substantial outdoor dining table fits neatly into an enclosed space creating the sense of another ‘room’. An olive tree in a raised bed provides a focal point while other planting is kept simple: masses of green and white-leaved Brunnera macrophylla ‘Jack Frost’ at the foot of dark green yew hedges. Meanwhile, a modern aluminium awning over the table with louvred roof slats and heaters extends the season of use.
Dividing the space into these zones is, says Ian, typical of today’s garden style with the idea of creating an outdoor living space.
‘People are thinking more of their garden as being another room. Rather than just having a large house with one room in, you want these defined spaces in a garden to allow for dining and lounging. People are thinking more of how they live in the garden.’
An awning extends the season of use for the dining area - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
Salvia verticillata 'Purple Rain' - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
If the long retaining wall is the standout feature in the hard landscaping, it’s the way the rest of the space has been tackled that makes the planting memorable.
Rather than create traditional borders, which would have been difficult to maintain on the slope, Ian has instead used the neighbouring common on Cleeve Hill as inspiration.
Wrapping around the house and its formal garden are swathes of wildflowers in an ever-changing tapestry of colour with mown paths providing access.
They’ve been created using turf studded with perennials including ox eye daisies, tufted vetch and red campion.
The mass of wildflowers contrasts with neatly mown grass paths - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
Achillea millefolium or Yarrow - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
There are the flat white and pink flower heads of Yarrow (Achillea millefolium), thistle-like purple blooms of the Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra), bright patches of yellow from Birds’s-foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) and seedheads from grasses.
The meadows edge the lower lawn – spoil from some of the 600 tonnes excavated has been used to create a piece of level ground further down the garden. They also run alongside the bottom of the house and fill the space above the retaining wall. The wall does have the addition of a line of lavender providing a buffer between the formal and informal elements of the garden.
Using the excavated subsoil resulted in the sort of poor growing conditions that these wildflowers thrive in, ground that would have needed improving for traditional planting.
‘It provided the perfect solution to a difficult problem,’ says Ian.
Maintenance is also minimal as the meadows just need cutting down once a year in late summer and the cut material removing.
The wildflower meadow runs up to the bottom of the house - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw
And it’s not just the clients who are enjoying the flowers as the plants are attracting a wide range of insects.
The achievement of a project that took two weeks shy of a year to complete has been recognised by the industry with Graduate Gardeners winning several prizes including the Grand Award at the British Association of Landscape Industries’ annual contest.
Even so, Ian is modest about what he’s created: ‘The lay of the land dictated quite a lot of the design because you can only do so much to a very steep sloping site.’
For more information about Graduate Gardeners, see the website: graduategardeners.co.uk
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The wildflowers are repeated down the garden - Credit: © Mandy Bradshaw