Tag Archives: Somerset

Gardens of Somerset: Forde Abbey

12 Monday Mar 2012

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A landscape that’s remained much the same
for over a thousand years

Some gardens are known for their topiary; others for their cloud-pruned hedges, or monumental cascades, or ranges of spectacular Victorian glasshouses.

Forde Abbey, not technically in Somerset but near as dammit being just a few miles over the Dorset border from Chard in south Somerset, is known for something altogether smaller, more modest and natural: it is covered, at this time of year, with swathes, rivers, and cascades of crocus.

This is how crocus should be grown: not as little clumps of specimens without context, floating lonely in a sea of mulched garden soil, but as rivers of purple and violet and white running down hillsides and cascading across fields, witness to the generosity of the natural world.

When you see crocus in this number you realise what spectacular plants they are: a sheet of colour from a distance, when you get up close you see how not a single one is the same as the next. Some have slender, papery petals, others are blowsy and generous; some petals are deeply striated in violet or fade from deep purple at the tips to translucent white in the centre as though someone had been along and turned the flower upside down to dip it in paint.

Most of the crocus at Forde Abbey are Crocus vernus and C. tommasinianus – both perfect for naturalising in grass as they seed freely and grow vigorously. The huge variations within each species is part of their charm, of course. They’re also delicate enough to meld in and look natural: imagine large-flowered ‘Snow Bunting’ here and you realise it would just look plain wrong.

If you can tear yourself away from the crocus for long enough (don’t worry: there are bound to be more just around the corner) there are other delights to be seen at Forde: not least the Abbey itself, a wonderfully mellow 12th century Cistercian monastery owned and run privately by the Roper family for over a century.

I love the fact that both house and garden are still in private hands: it avoids that corporate too-perfect National Trust look entirely, and though it is undeniably a little woolly around the edges, that’s part of the attraction (and rather reassures you, since when a stately home has a few weeds in the borders it somehow gives you permission to, as well).

It’s the only place I’ve ever been which leads you to the house through the veg garden: I approve enormously, as this is a real testament to the fact that edible gardens needn’t be tucked away out of sight. This bit of the garden is ably managed by Charlotte Roper, who was kind enough to let me have a nose round the peach house – usually closed to visitors – in exchange for a photo of her Peach ‘Peregrine’ in full and sumptuous flower.
Peach ‘Peregrine’ in the lean-to greenhouse looking sublime
against the mellow stone of the Abbey walls

The lumpy-bumpy cloud-pruned hedges that greet you on the other side of a monastic archway are echoed in the quirky and deliciously tactile dollops of clipped yew hedgery that line the pathways. Forde does long framed views extremely well – the legacy of its 17th-century landscape roots – both down the Lime Avenue and across the Mermaid Pond to the waterfall beyond.

Yews like big green dollops of cake mix:
I just wanted to stroke them

Water is a big thing at Forde: as well as the Mermaid Pond and its accompanying Long Pond, running the length of the double herbaceous borders, there is a huge bog garden full of burgeoning skunk cabbage, a canal pond and a Great Pond, too – the only surviving bit of the landscape the monks left behind.

It is a peaceful, absorbing place: one of those gardens where you find little surprises in odd corners. You may come to see the crocuses, but you stay to teeter along the ha-ha, explore the Blacksmith Hill and meander along the Stone Path. I ended with a happy half-hour rummaging among the extremely good selection of plants in the well-laid-out nursery alongside the garden. The perfect end to a perfect day.
  • The gardens of Forde Abbey, Dorset, are open every day from 10am. You can also look around the house if you go in the afternoon between April and the end of October.

Avon calling

20 Tuesday Sep 2011

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One of the slightly more unexpected side-effects of my move to Somerset last year has been that I find myself at the heart of what seems to be an area with a gravitational pull for outstanding nurseries.


Bulb beds carved from a field but full of treasure
Desert to Jungle, Kelways in the Somerset Levels, the walled gardens of heritage vegmeisters Pennard Plants and Hewitt-Coopers of carnivorous plant fame are all within half an hour’s drive. Jekka McVicar is a bit further up the M5, and Joy Michaud and her chillies are a short hop down towards the Dorset coast.


The dahlia bed: every possible variety (and that dark-petalled one)
Any of these would be a pilgrimage for me. But the one I was most thrilled to find as a near neighbour is Avon Bulbs.

I make a beeline for Avon every time I arrive in a floral marquee. I don’t think I’ve ever come away from their stand without discovering a new treasure to squirrel away in my list of plants I must grow one day: they have unwavering and exquisitely good taste in plants.


Mathiasella bupleuroides ‘Green Dream’
So last weekend they became the first of my pilgrimages, largely because they generously opened their doors for a rare open day in aid of Friends of African Nursing (a small but tirelessly energetic charity doing marvellous work training African nurses in better hygiene practices: look them up, and help them if you can).


Knee high Kniphofia ‘Light of the World’
Owner Chris Ireland-Jones and his family started Avon in 1990, in a middlingly derelict 7-acre former dairy farm in South Petherton (a stone’s throw from Margery Fish’s garden at East Lambrook Manor – told you I was in a good gardening area).


Dahlia coccinea var palmeri
They’re exclusively mail order (apart from voracious visitors like our group last weekend) and make 2/3 of their annual income between early September and mid November. I was tempted to ask Chris why he wasn’t in a shed somewhere feverishly packing bulbs instead of wasting time with us lot, but I suspect he was quite happy to have a break.

Chelsea is the lodestone for the whole of the nursery’s year. They have three chilling sheds with which they time the bulbs to flower in that last week in May. His description of the routine for tulips – lift in March, bring in to 2-3°C to stop them growing, when the weather forecast says cold, you move them outside to keep them green, as soon as the temperature rises you bring them in again… well, it had me tired just thinking about it.


Nerine x bowdenii ‘Zeal Giant’
The stock beds are long, thin strips cut out of a field, punctuated with high wall-like hedges to absorb the wind. It kept reminding me of my old allotment; except here the crops are bulbs, bulking up in great blocks of foliage and flower.


Actaea simplex ‘Brunette’
Most of course were getting ready to die back for the winter (if they hadn’t already); but there were some wonderful late summer bulbs still in glorious bloom. Eucomis, dahlia, camassias, kniphofia and some sultry Actaea simplex ‘Brunette’: a lesson for anyone who thinks bulbs are just for spring.


Eucomis pallida en masse
We had an absorbing and hugely enjoyable day, made all the more so by Chris’s affable and knowledgeable company. I’m afraid I disgraced myself by failing dismally to stay with the group and do as I was told; well, who in their right mind would walk past a bed brimming with dahlias, including a glimpse of one spidery dark one which was ravishingly lovely, and not stop?

So: without further ado, here’s the list of plants which caught my eye and tempted me off the beaten track.

Nerine x bowdenii ‘Zeal Giant’: the most in-yer-face nerine I’ve ever seen. Lipstick pink and huge.

Dahlia coccinea var palmeri: towering tall but airy and graceful, dancing with clear orange flowers.

Eucomis pallida: thick, upright spires of cream over strappy green leaves, tall and imposing

Eucomis villosa: shorter, at 2ft, and scented: the pale flower has a button-like darker centre

Kniphofia ‘Light of the World’: the tiniest, daintiest red-hot poker, little more than a foot high

Mathiasella bupleuroides ‘Green Dream’: no flowers now, but worth it just for the handsome foliage

Dahlia ‘Dark Desire’: jumped out at me from the dahlia bed: slim near-black petals and a buttery eye

Actaea simplex ‘Brunette’: spires of dreamy white over deeply-toothed leaves of deepest purple.