L I V E 2 4 -SE V EN
THROUGH THE GA RDEN GAT E BERRYS PLACE FARM
Having completed her season working for the BBC on the RHS Shows coverage, our media horticulturalist, Camilla Bassett-Smith, swaps the buzz of the television for the buzz of the bumble bee in a Gloucestershire garden packed with beauty…
Despite a road closure and Sat Nav silliness, this glowing garden was well worth finding and far exceeded my expectations!
Berrys Place Farm in Churcham covers an area of two acres, offering large herbaceous borders and lawn making the most of the surrounding borrowed landscape. Anne Thomas and her husband Gary moved here in 1984, but it was around 11 years ago that the gardens started to take shape following their children’s departure to university and redundant requirement for full scale football space.
Anne has gardened since she was a child and used to accompany her father to his allotment. Fast forward to the 21st century and those gardening genes are top quality gold! The white walled house is surrounded by colour, with a glossy fig fanning its leaves in the sunshine and lavender losing itself in the lazy haze of summer. Rosa ‘Ferdy’ is sensationally salmon and standing alone in grass enjoying its solo performance. Borders have all the right curves in all the right places (I’m singing a well-known Lisa Stansfield song as I write this line!) and are jam packed with every perennial possible. There must be a slug theme park nearby attracting all the local molluscs, as hostas here have no sign of damage!
A doorway cut through a thick hedge leads you further through the grounds and what was once just a field is now a creation of which I’m sure Gertrude Jekyll would have approved. Sweeping borders continue and we‘re introduced to the formal box-edged fruit and vegetable garden boasting broad beans, runner beans, rhubarb and carrots to name a few, with sweet peas popping with colour and scent. A lone spade remains upright in the soil, like a scene from Peter Rabbit, while a Wedding Cake Tree (Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’) stands nearby, its layers delicious and covered in variegated icing!
A rose arbour is the perfect place for a summer ramble, with an elegant seat awaiting your posterior, one of many in this garden (seats not posteriors, although on a busy day of course both are in residence)!
A pond is beautifully surrounded with softened planting, but there’s more water to wonder at beyond a gate. The gigantic lake was created 15 years ago, it was that or a tennis court, and the ducks were certainly pleased with the choice, water sports being more their thing!
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