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Alan Mort S
Higher Ash Farm in 1987 and spent the next 30 years transforming the coarse grazing land into a beautiful woodland garden that is open to the public. He began by creating a 12 acre
Fast Rabbit Farm
garden burst into resplendent bloom. Fast Rabbit Farm is awash with colour at all times of
year, but during the early months its saturated hues are especially vibrant. Alan bought what was then called
By Ginny Farrell
PRING is Alan Mort’s favourite time of the year, when hundreds of magnolias, rhododendrons, camellias and cherry trees in his 43-acre
garden in the sheltered Strawberry Valley, bringing in excavators to landscape the hillside and fashion a lake and several ponds. Over the years he has extensively cultivated the farm with a myriad of plants: ornamental trees, daffodils, bluebells and roses; as well as creating a wildflower meadow, rockery, wooded areas and a mediterranean garden. There are also magnolia, camellia and rose walks to
“If you just did the garden for yourself it would be rather empty, but being able to share it is wonderful.”
enjoy, along with a plant centre and polytunnel where Alan brings on seedlings and cuttings to plant out. Alan’s love of gardening germinated as a young lad. “I was given a little patch of ground in the garden when I was seven and shown how to sow seeds of night scented stock and little coloured annuals. I was so excited by that,” he said. Despite a passion for gardening, Alan decided to study medicine as “I did want to help in the world,” he said. Sadly, his studies were interrupted when his mother fell ill and he was forced to swap to a pharmaceutical degree instead, going on to open two pharmacies in Brixham. “I enjoyed it but eventually I got a little
bit bored and once I could afford to retire I bought the farm. I found it didn’t really pay its way so I decided to create a garden as it was something I had always wanted to do.” A self-taught gardener, Alan was inspired by the stunning Cornish estates of Lanhydrock, Cotehele and Trebah, and later his own garden in Kingswear.
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