Category Archives: Private Gardens

Hillside:  Dan Pearson and Huw Morgan in Somerset

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It is somewhat daunting to write about a garden whose owners are a world-renowned designer with a lyrical, thoughtful writing style and a photographer-writer who chronicles their garden’s finest moments (and his own delicious recipes) in mouth-watering images for their beautiful online magazine Dig Delve. But to visit Hillside is to be enchanted – by its story, its scope, its exquisite melding of the garden to the land, and the land to the garden, and what came long before. So I will attempt to capture a little of the great joy of my short time there in early June.    

We start in the outdoor kitchen where our gracious and hospitable hosts, Dan Pearson, left, and Huw Morgan, right, serve us a refreshing elderflower concoction in pretty pottery cups. Here we hear a little history before wandering the 20-acre smallholding near Bath, which they purchased in 2010 from the estate of the previous owner, Raymond Lewis, an elderly farmer born on the property who had grazed his cattle to the very edges of the rolling limestone pastures and milked the cows in an old tin barn. Upon his death, friends living across the stream at the bottom of the valley below told Dan and Huw that the property was available. After walking the fields with the farmer’s brother, visiting the old orchard and inspecting the house that had last been decorated when the brothers’ mother was alive, Dan wrote later in The Guardian: “There were no ifs, buts or maybes. No doubt. It was where we wanted to be.”  It would take three trips from London eight months later, the car boot jammed with favourite plants from their long, narrow Peckham garden, to begin to put their minds to this vast empty canvas.

They went slowly, doing little for the first years. As Dan wrote in Dig Delve, “It took that long to know what to do with the place and what has felt right here.”  In autumn 2012, they installed a pair of 18th century granite troughs used originally for tanning leather, now intended to gather rainwater. Once the steep land grade was levelled on this upper spine, the troughs would connect the house with the barns and form the gateway to what would become the new kitchen garden beyond.

The horizontal line of the troughs, in the background below, also echoes the horizontal line of 52 ancient beech trees on Freezing Hill in the far distance, which occupies a Bronze Age landform between Somerset and the Cotswolds.

In gravelly rubble between the house and the troughs, Dan grows favourite clumping plants such as eryngium and calamint along with a host of self-seeders: cephalaria, corn cockle, silvery ballota, poppies, blue flax and a white California poppy (Eschscholzia californica ‘Ivory Castle’).

To understand the initial challenges posed by the steep lie of the land, it’s helpful to read Dan’s essay The Kitchen Garden tracking the 4-year progress from the trough installation to the first harvest.  As he wrote, “When we arrived here the flat ground was literally no more than a strip in front of the outbuildings. We perched a table and chairs there to make the most of not being on the angle”.  Gardening on the steep hillside was a challenge: “Sowing, thinning, weeding and harvesting on a slope were all that much harder with one leg shorter than the other and tools and buckets balanced.” In time the ground near the barns was leveled and a breeze-block wall built to hold back the sloping fields above, to reflect heat and the fragrance of perfumed plants……

…. and to give fruits such as cordon-espaliered pears, below, a warm surface on which to ripen. A fig in this area is a cutting of ‘White Marseilles’ from Dan’s project at Lambeth Palace, the parent plant “brought from Rome by the last Roman Catholic Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Reginald Pole, in 1556.”

In the early years, trees were planted: several in a new orchard; some in a ‘blossom wood’ of native species; hazels and alders down by the stream; memorial trees to honour missed friends; and a katsura grove in the valley with its exquisite autumn perfume to evoke Dan’s long project at Tokachi Forest in Hokkaido, Japan. Trial beds held David Austin roses for cutting, 56 varieties of dahlia and a rainbow of tulips. Signature plants appeared, including different species of towering giant fennel (Ferula spp.), a Mediterranean plant I saw first in the ruins of Troy many years ago, so it always makes me think of Homer to see it now. Dan has used Ferula communis subsp. glauca in his design for the Delos Garden at Sissinghurst. (More on that later.)

Rusticity and a sense of place is preserved in the tin walls of the barn, a backdrop to feverfew, bronze fennel and the unusual lilac-purple valerian, Centranthus lecoqii.  

English gardeners seem to grow more umbellifers than I’ve counted anywhere in my North American travels, and I had to ask Dan twice the name of the lovely one below. It’s Athamanta turbith, a cold-hardy native of the Balkans.

Another plant used by Dan in Delos at Sissinghurst also appears in this upper garden: tall pink Dianthus carthusianorum, shown here (in terrible sunlight, sorry) with Achillea ‘Moonlight’.

Constructed in spring 2014, the kitchen garden comprises a double row of steel-edged, rectangular beds with a broad walk in-between.

The soil where the vegetables grow is rich and productive. According to an elderly neighbour, in the 1960s the former owner’s parents grew vegetables in a market garden on the slopes, and berried boughs from holly trees still standing were harvested for Christmas wreaths for the market.

Creative trellising allows vertical growing of cucumbers and summer squash. Other crops include courgettes, French and runner beans, peppers, salad greens, carrots, turnips, beets, sweet corn and tomatoes (in a poly house).  

Berries and currants are grown in beds with frames that can be netted later against birds.

Three varieties of rhubarb are grown at Hillside, providing the ingredients for Huw’s delectable rhubarb galette.

Time is fleeting and Dan leads us down a path through the meadows towards the brook.  When I look up the hill through a bouquet of massive Gunnera manicata leaves….

….. that I literally held above my head as I passed under them a moment earlier, illustrating the deceptive scale, I see the cluster of buildings at the top. Closest is the milking barn, now the studio office where Dan and Huw carry out their design work.  To its right is the main ornamental garden, which we’ll visit in a few minutes.

On the way to the pond, Dan pauses in the meadow surrounded by oxeye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare), buttercups (Ranunculus acris) and black knapweed (Centaurea nigra). He is in the process of overseeding the meadows with yellow rattle and native orchids, including gift seeds harvested by Fergus Garrett at Great Dixter, to improve the biodiversity here.

 The pond is just two years old, the marginal plants still finding their feet. But water has always been important to Dan in a garden – and this pond might host two-legged swimmers, as well as aquatic flora.  

I am fond of meadows, having grown one or two myself, so I take note of the red campion (Silene dioica)……

….. and blue-flowered Caucasian comfrey (Symphytum caucasicum).

Water runs in a ditch through parts of the low meadows and after planting the banks with marsh marigolds and snowdrops, Dan sought to add small bridges. Apart from a pair made of stone, he riffed on Japanese landscape design with his own timber zig-zag bridge.   

In the damp ground alongside the bridge grows Iris x robusta ‘Dark Aura’.

Despite watching my legs and hands as I navigate the paths, the stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) seem to recognize a feckless Canadian and soon I am rubbing my wrist with a dock leaf (Rumex obtusifolius) proffered by Dan. (It helps with the sting but I have impressive raised welts the next day that cause me to reflect on the traditional medicinal value of this common European plant which, I suppose, would cause you to forget about your chronic arthritis while your skin deals with the acute inflammation.)  

Back at the top, we are now let loose in Hillside’s ornamental garden, which occupies several large, irregularly-shaped beds on the upper slope. Planted in Spring 2017 and finished in Autumn 2017, it was the result of five years of waiting and planning. There is so much to see here, but not nearly enough time to study it carefully.

Burgundy Knautia macedonica is stealing the show, with yellow Euphorbia wallichii in the rear. The profusion of summer perennials and ornamental grasses is still to come, which we can glimpse thanks to Dig Delve’s back issues.

A dark opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) is the progeny of gifted seed from plants Dan saw when cycling to work in his early 20s. It is the only variety he grows, careful not to let it hybridize with the mauve and pink ones his neighbours grow.  

The ornamental garden is a keen plantsman’s lair and it is such fun for us to learn the names of new plants. This is Nepeta ‘Blue Dragon’ a large-flowered hybrid of N. yunnanensis and N. nervosa.

Greek native yellow-banded iris (Iris orientalis) partners with a caramel-colored baptisia in one place…

…. while perfumed sweet peas twine pea sticks in another.

Sulfur clover (Trifolium ocroleuchon) has many of us clicking shutters.

Though it would be lovely to stay another week, there’s just enough time to see the latest chapter at Hillside. This spring, after contemplating the site for a few years and planting it first with a green manure, then a pastel mix of Nigel Dunnett’s ‘Pictorial Meadows’ seeds, a new garden has taken shape. It’s a Mediterranean garden inspired partly by Dan’s work recreating the Delos Garden at Sissinghurst, where he’s been a consultant for almost a decade.  

The new garden features a 6-inch mulch of sharp sand, following principles established by Swedish designer Peter Korn.  It features drought-tolerant plants such as lilac Phlomis italica, below, verbascums and N. American desert perennials like Sphaeralcea ambigua.

I was fortunate to have visited Sissinghurst the previous weekend and saw the Delos Garden….

….. richly planted with asphodelines and sages, among other Mediterranean plants.

Its stone altars were brought in the 1820s from the Greek island by Vita Sackville-West’s husband Harold Nicholson’s seafaring great grandfather and acquired at auction by Harold when the family house in Ireland was sold in 1936.  I have a special fondness for the sacred island of Delos….

…. having visited myself in autumn more than a decade ago when the grasses and wildflowers had gone to seed and were blowing in the hot wind, below. It was my fervent desire to return one day in spring when the flowers are in bloom, but seeing Dan’s garden at Sissinghurst in early June might be the closest I come.

As we head back to the open kitchen, I pass a handsome shrub that Dan tells me is his friend Dan Hinkley’s introduction Hydrangea serrata ‘Plum Passion’.   

And in a sheltered spot near the house are pots of perfumed dianthus and society garlic (Tulbaghia ‘Moshoeshoe’).

As our visit is coming to an end, we are invited to sit and enjoy the lovely English garden tour custom of “tea and cake”.  Huw Morgan has worked his magic on blackcurrants, garnished lavishly with rose petals…..

….. and quite possibly the best lemon pound cake I’ve ever tasted, garnished with tiny elderflowers and lemon slices.   

And after the last crumb is finished and it’s time to head into Bath nearby, Dan and Huw insist on posing with us for a group photo – the perfect hosts with the perfect garden at the end of a perfect visit in Somerset.

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If you like naturalistic meadow gardening, you might wish to read my blog on Piet Oudolf’s entry border at the Toronto Botanical Garden, published as:

Piet Oudolf – Meadow Maker Part One and Part Two.

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Dan Pearson’s website

I travelled with Carolyn Mullet’s Carex Tours .

Spring at Brigham Hill Farm

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One of the best things about travelling for me is visiting gardens.  And one of the best things about having pals who are gardeners is the chance to visit beautiful private gardens at the drop of a hat!  So it was that the day after our spectacular May visit to Garden in the Woods in Framingham, MA (see my 2-part blog beginning here), my dear friend Kim Cutler of Worcester MA and Doug and I found ourselves walking up the stone path in front of the pretty yellow house of Kim’s friends, Shirley and Peter Williams at Brigham Hill Farm in North Grafton, MA.  The oldest part of the house dates from approximately 1795 and the property is on land established by Charles Brigham in 1727. According to the Grafton Land Trust, “Charles Brigham was one of the ‘Forty Proprietors’ who were given the grant to settle Grafton by King George II of England. The farm eventually covered most of Brigham Hill and raised fine dairy cows.”

Though Shirley was entertaining a friend in her lovely screened porch….

…. she cheerfully invited us to tour around the property ourselves.

What a gorgeous spot to enjoy the view to the garden without being bothered by insects or inclement weather!

Since it was mid-May, the late tulips were still looking gorgeous and Shirley had filled vases….

….. and bottles with them from her cutting garden.

Off we went past a towering sugar maple tree and stone wall toward the still-awakening perennial garden.

We passed the old, beautifully-restored 18th century barn on the right and more of the amazing stone walls that characterize Brigham Hill.  The house and barn are part of the parcel of land purchased in 1975 by Shirley and Peter Williams.  In time, Shirley and Peter purchased a large, adjacent piece of land and in 2007 they gifted a conservation restriction on the land to the Grafton Land Trust; its name is the Williams Preserve. But in those early days after their children were raised, the house and barn restored and the stone walls rebuilt, they were ready to begin gardening in earnest, at times seeking the expertise of designer/plantsman Warren Leach of Tranquil Lake Nursery in Rehoboth MA.

There were late daffodils and lots of fragrant lilacs nestled beside the stone walls.

Edible gardens are a big summer focus at Brigham Hill but I had never seen an espaliered apple using the heat of a stone wall to produce fruit.

Rhododendrons looked lovely, too.

Though billowing beds in the perennial garden form the focus in this area later in the season, I was happy to find this rustic, little red cedar pergola with….

….. bleeding hearts and Japanese hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’) looking fresh and lovely in a shady planting that also featured…

….. a stunning array of Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum) with bloodroot foliage (Sanguinaria canadensis).

I am a great fan of drama in the garden and this Warren Leach-designed dark border at the barn tickled my colour fancy a lot!

The big plants are hardy ‘Grace’ smoke bush (Cotinus hybrid) kept pruned into a columnar shape and tender black cordylines in pots.

At their base were the dark tulip ‘Queen of Night’ and the emerging black leaves of cow parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris ‘Ravenswing’).

Nearby, a cold frame contained an assortment of lush leaf lettuce for spring salads….

… while around the corner were Shirley’s annual seedlings, including varieties of love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena), statice and amaranth.

Across the way, a shade-dappled woodland on a rocky outcrop beckoned to us. At one time, according to a story by Carol Stocker in the Boston Globe, this was originally “a hill overrun by Japanese knotweed and poison ivy.”  Warren Leach found original granite foundation stones from the 18th century barn and “cellar holes” left as remnants of old colonial settler homes and used them to create the pond, rill, small waterfall and rugged stone steps that makes this feature so magical.

I was enchanted by the reflections of the chartreuse spring tree canopy in the pond.

Large granite pieces form sturdy steps…

…. while water bubbles down between stones.

Velvety moss is a major part of the charm of this garden….

…. but it is also a garden of sedges and woodland plants including greater yellow ladyslipper (Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens)….

…. which is such an iconic native orchid for the northeast….

… and Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium caeruleum)…

…. and crested iris (I. cristata).

This was a pretty combination of Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) with yellow wood poppies (Stylophorum diphyllum) and ostrich ferns (Matteucia struthiopteris).

Rhododendrons were flowering with the ferns in the woodland, too, and….

…. at the very edge, tulips grew in a carpet of Virginia bluebells.

Back out in the open, late-season tulips were still looking good in Shirley’s raised cutting bed.  What a luxury, to have armfuls of tulips for vases!

Next up was the chicken coop with its succulent green-roof planted with sempervivums or (haha) “hens-and-chicks” – a nice pad for the resident hens.

Strawberry plants were flowering behind critter-proof protective mesh.

Caned berry bushes have their own enclosure.

The back of the house with its dining terrace features more stone walls, their geometric lines echoed in the clipped hedges. Later, colourful perennials will emerge in the beds here. Those stone steps lead into the walled vegetable garden, still unplanted.

If you visit a garden in May, you see spring things, but I did regret not being able to see the large, raised-bed vegetable parterre behind the stone wall in summer.

Trees, both in the native forest on the property and cultivated in the garden, are a focus at Brigham Hill Farm.  This featherleaf Japanese maple is a good example, as are…

…. the trees in the “arboretum”, including native flowering dogwood (Cornus florida)…

…. which looked resplendent against the blue May sky.  

We circled around to the front of the house and met Shirley’s guest, Kathleen Ladd, departing with a giant bouquet of freshly-cut lilacs and tulips, a lovely gesture from a gardener who also shares the expansive beauty of Brigham Hill Farm with many charities and groups for fundraising events

Kathleen Ladd with bouquet of lilacs and tulips from Shirley Williams's garden.

At the gate, we said farewell to my friend, gardener and well-known potter Kim Cutler (left), and to Shirley Williams, thanking her for her generosity in sharing her garden with us, strangers from Canada!  It was a highlight of our spring road trip.  (Stay tuned for Chanticleer!)

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Want to see some of the other inspiring private gardens I’ve photographed?
Here is Katerina Georgi’s garden in Greece 
This is tequila expert Lucinda Hutson’s fabulous garden in Austin, TX
The spectacular Denver CO garden of Rob Proctor & David Macke
The Giant’s House in Akaroa NZ – a mosaic masterpiece
Architect & art collector Sir Miles Warren’s garden Ohinetahi in NZ
Garden designer Barbara Katz’s gorgeous garden in Bethesda, MD
My friend and plantswoman Marnie Wright’s garden in Bracebridge ON  

In Aldona’s Garden

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“Do you want some Rudbeckia triloba? I can dig some up for you,” said my good friend Aldona Satterthwaite last week. “Of course!” I replied, since browneyed susan is one of the few rudbeckias I haven’t grown. We made a date to meet at her house. I brought her a little plant of Salvia guaranitica ‘Black and Blooms’ that I’d grown from rooted cuttings of my favourite hummingbird plant, and she sat me down on her perfect, socially-distanced veranda, with furniture and colourful, weatherproof carpet from Toronto’s Moss Danforth garden boutique…..

…… and gave me a piece of freshly-baked Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Coffee Cake, recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It is easily the best coffee cake I’ve ever had, but it’s merely one little item in Aldona’s big culinary repertoire. When I make her kale-blue cheese pasta, my husband now says “Didn’t we just have this?” Yes, we did. And we’re having it again because it’s the perfect mix of righteous anti-oxidant vegetable, decadent fromage bleu and carbohydrates!  But I digress.

Aldona and I were born in the same year and share a love of green and growing things, not to mention food, music, travel and good gossip.  I met her in 2001 when she became editor-in-chief of Canadian Gardening magazine where I’d been a freelance contributor since the first issue in 1990.  Prior to that, she’d held key positions in the communication/creative departments at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. After leaving Canadian Gardening in 2009, she spent 3 years as a very engaged and well-regarded Executive Director of the Toronto Botanical Garden. In short, she’s a powerhouse… and she loves to garden.

As we ate our cake and chatted, it felt like the veranda was a leafy treehouse, thanks to the little forest in her small front garden: magnolia, chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus) and serviceberry (Amelanchier).  South-facing, it also cools the house on hot summer days.

Birds were waiting for us to finish our snack, so they could nosh on their own plump, ripe serviceberries.

After finishing my cake, I did a fast tour of Aldona’s sweet garden, heading down the stairs beside the pots of colourful begonias, which she uses in profusion.

The garden is small but jam-packed with plants in what seems at first like happy chaos, but is a very well planned orchestration of blooms. Along with a backbone of shrubs and small trees are perennials, biennials (like the R. triloba she was giving me) and self-seeding annuals like the cosmos, front, below. That pretty purple and chartreuse combination is common sage (Salvia officinalis) with ‘Worcester Gold’ bluebeard (Caryopteris x clandonensis).  

Sometimes we forget that sage is a hardy perennial – and one you can nip the odd leaf from for the kitchen. Both the sage and bluebeard attract hummingbirds and bees. (That’s browneyed susan with the 3-lobed leaves.)

Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) has become a little too rambunctious for Aldona, popping up here, there and everywhere.

In the main part of the front garden under the outstretched arms of the magnolia is an array of perennials with strong foliage appeal, including chartreuse Aralia cordata ‘Sun King’, upper left; variegated Solomon’s seal; ‘Gold Heart’ bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis) and various hostas. Hiding in the shadows is goatsbeard (Aruncus dioicus) with its feathery, ivory flowers.

Also hidden in the rear is a double-flowered ‘Snowflake’ oakleaf hydrangea (H. quercifolia).

Because much of June has been uncharacteristically cool, the bleeding heart still bore a few blossoms…..

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…. and dainty pink columbines were still in bloom.

‘Jack Frost’ Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla) had shed its tiny, blue flowers but the handsome, variegated foliage is attractive all season.

The big, starry globes of Allium cristophii are always a focal point in the June garden.

In the gravel driveway flanking the house was Aldona’s “cutting garden”: a large, galvanized stock tank, i.e. water trough planter, and assorted window-boxes and pots filled with zinnias and other annuals sprouting from seed.

The back garden is bisected by a gravel pathway….

…. and has as its charming backdrop a 1930s garage in vintage condition!  It even has a bump-out for the original owner’s long sedan. Aldona has added window boxes and climbing frames for vines.

Vines blanket the fence beside a vibrant, pink sling chair and a pair of Japanese maples add a touch of elegance to the west side of the garden.

I noted a pretty Phlomis tuberosa with its lilac flowers….

…. and the first crimson blossoms of Clematis ‘Niobe’.

And at the very back of the garden, Clematis ‘Betty Corning’, that wonderful cross of C. crispa x C. viticella discovered in a garden in Albany, NY in 1932 by the plantswoman of the same name, flung her pale-purple bells here and there.

What a lovely Friday. A delightful garden, a good friend, and cake, too!

Flora and Joy in Englewood

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Last June, I was privileged to visit several gardens in the Denver area owned by horticultural professionals with connections to the city’s wonderful Denver Botanic Gardens. Home gardeners in the area know former Director of Horticulture Rob Proctor from his longstanding appearances on television, but he and partner David Macke have a stunning garden filled with colour, billowing borders and myriad beautiful seating areas.  I wrote about their garden here. Plant collectors and alpine enthusiasts around the globe know Panayoti Kelaidis, Senior Curator and Director of Outreach for the DBG. I blogged here about the fabulous hillside garden he shares with his partner Jan Fas. Today I’m going to introduce you to the charming, plant-rich garden of DBG Curator of Native Plants and Associate Director of Horticulture Dan Johnson and his partner Tony Miles in Englewood. Let’s get off the bus and check out the heavenly “hell strip”, that bit of civic real estate formerly known as “the boulevard”. You don’t even have to go into the garden to understand that the homeowners here have some serious horticultural chops. I see penstemons, alliums, foxtail lily, columbines and so much more.

Looking the other way, there are California poppies and bearded irises… even a little pink rose!

A magenta pool of delosperma meanders through the sedum and alliums. In the background are white prickly poppies (Argemone sp).

I love a garden that bestows a gift on the street, and Dan and Tony’s garden has a spirit of ebullient generosity that makes their neighbourhood a joyous place. Verbascums, irises, alliums and opium poppies….

…..occupy a niche garden against a pretty stucco wall along the city sidewalk.

Here’s the adobe-flavoured front porch! It’s as if every cool garden accessory shop in the southwest decided to open a pop-up store here at this house in suburban Denver.

Let’s amble past the tall, blue ceramic pot with its palm, standing in its own boxwood-hedged corner….

…. and climb the steps so we can get a better look at the slumbering Medusa with her euphorbia dreadlocks and try to count all the pots on the ground and hanging from hooks….

….. containing specimens of cacti…. Hmmm, I’ve lost count. So let’s just enjoy the view and the sound of the wind-chimes and all the splashes of colour…..

…. and fine workmanship that turns a few plant hangers into a work of art.

When I visit a complex garden like this, I often wonder how much time the owners actually take to sit down and enjoy a meal or glass of wine, but this is a lovely spot…..

….. with the splash of the fountain in the container water garden nearby.

Let’s explore the front garden a little, with its mix of perennials in the shade of a big conifer…..

……and its birdhouse-toting elephants.

Our time here is so limited and we need to see the back of the garden, which is just beyond this cool arch and gate.

The back of the house is more about getting right into the garden….

…. past the corn poppies (Papaver rhoeas)….

…. and the potted agave…..

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…. with the yuccas nearby.

What an interesting journey awaits, and we can go in a few directions. Let’s head towards the purple shed way in the back left corner.

I love this combination of foxtail lily (Eremurus) and perfectly coordinated horned poppy (probably Glaucium corniculatum, though these Denver gardeners grow some interesting glauciums).

There are several water features, big and small, in the garden. This ever-pouring bottle emptying into a shell full of marbles is so simple and lovely.

There are little points of interest on the way, like this lovely bearded iris with spiral wire sculpures….

…. that perfectly echo the airy star-of-Persia alliums (Allium cristophii).

I like this carved panel, tucked into the fence and adorned with honeysuckle.

A little further along the path, we pass a drift of orange California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) and penstemons. Note the urn water feature at the left, spilling into the small pond, which in turn spills into the larger pond below.

We come finally to the larger koi pond and its iron sculpture.

Unobtrusive nylon wires span the pond, thwarting all the fish-menacing birds that love a koi lunch.  Let’s head to the deck around the purple garden shed beyond. (By the way, if you love purple in the garden, be sure to read my blog on Austin’s famous tequila maven Lucinda Hutson and her purple house and garden.)

The shed walls feature artfully-screened mirrors that reflect light and the leafy garden (and some tired bloggers relaxing and enjoying the view).

There are also some very cool tentacled pots filled with succulents adorning the wall.

On the other side of the garden from the pond are beds filled with June irises, poppies and alliums and more interesting sculptures….

…. including a glass globe artfully displayed on a cool sculptural column.

One of the sad realities of a garden tour is that the day is very tightly scheduled with lots of wonderful stops along the way. If I’d had the time, I would have made my way back to Dan and Tony’s garden in better light (and with fewer of my fellow bloggers in the garden), as I did with Rob Proctor and David Macke’s garden. I feel as if I only absorbed half of what these artists have done in this colourful paradise in Englewood. But it’s time to head back to the bus, past this little shady corner filled with textural foliage plants and another sculpture.

As I walk under a conifer, I catch a flash of movement above. Looking up, I see a little wren having its lunch on the boughs.

It seems that humans aren’t the only visitors that appreciate what this lovely Colorado garden has to offer.

In Katerina Georgi’s Garden

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When I went ‘botanizing’ in Greece this autumn with the North American Rock Garden Society and guide Liberto Dario (Eleftherios Dariotis), I was delighted to be invited into a garden that evokes both the local agricultural vernacular and a romantic, rugged sense of place.  Surrounded by olive-studded hillsides with the long-spined Mount Taygetus at its back and the sparkling Messenian Gulf at its feet, it represents that hard-to-achieve marriage of clean lines and pure poetry. Let’s walk down the narrow lane towards designer Katerina Georgi’s place in the Aghia Sophia area near Kardamyli.

Her home is surrounded by drystone walls which, in the Peloponnese, are a pervasive part of the landscape, defining ancient wheat terraces and stepped olive groves and marking age-old perimeters of family properties. There is just so much rock here and no need for mortar in constructing these walls, a technique called “en xiro”. Natal plum (Carissa macrocarpa) and jasmine soften the edges and perfume the air.

Come closer and you see that the drystone walls create the perfect enclosure for a raised gravel parking pad and a sexy little red car.  Even here, you can see that the property – at 200 metres (656 feet) above sea level – is a series of elevation changes following the hillside from the mountain down to the seashore.

Let’s go through the lovely tile-roofed gate that frames the stepping-stone axis leading to the stone stairs of the house. The gate’s teal-blue wash is in keeping with much of the quiet blue-purple-gray-green palette in this garden, which depends more on foliage and form than flowers and colour. Nevertheless, reflecting the blues of the Ionian sea nearby, I found….

….. Ceratostigma plumbaginoides and Plumbago capensis in flower this early November day. (And when we meet her, it’s easy to see she does love blue.)

I’m quite sure most of us would take pains to line up each rectangular paver perfectly to match the next one – but how much more interesting a journey when they’re staggered ever so gently! We’ll go up the stairs to the terrace in a moment, but let’s meet Katerina Georgi first.

Born in London, she trained and worked as an interior designer for various practices before setting up her own consultancy there. After studying and working with the renowned John Brookes (1933-2018), she expanded into garden design. Since moving to Greece 26 years ago, her focus has been on the design and renovation of old, stone houses like her own and the creation of drought-tolerant Mediterranean gardens. Not surprisingly, she has played an active role in the Peloponnese Branch of the Mediterranean Garden Society here, along with her friend and our guide Liberto.

Let’s listen to him introduce Katerina and find out more from her about the garden.

As Katerina said, when she bought this house in 2009 it had no running water, sanitation or electricity. Its previous owner was a single man who lived a Spartan, solitary life: keeping goats, gathering water from a spring below the house, cooking his meals in an open fireplace and often carrying a shotgun (which did not endear him to the community). The good news? The goats had left a valuable supply of well-rotted manure which Katerina laboriously relocated to keep it from being contaminated during the building process. When I visit the guest room – the former goat shed – to have a glass of water, I am surprised to find his photo in a wall niche. Says Katerina: “I like the idea of continuity, so his photo is a link with the history of the house.”

Katerina began renovation work in the spring of 2010, excavating out the lower level of the house and using the sandstone spoil as the base for planting beds nearby and as a granular additive to poured cement to bring the paving colour and consistency closer to the stone house. You can see this treatment in the pavers of the raised terrace on the right as you enter the garden, with its small fig tree, a splash of bougainvillea……

….. and potato bush (Solanum rantonnetii).

There are carefully-chosen plants everywhere, including these grasses softening the house wall.

To the left of the gate as you enter, down a few steps and hidden behind a bower of rosemary buzzing with honey bees…..

…… and myrtle-leaved milkwort or September bush (Polygala myrtifolia)……

…… is a sheltered sitting area under a pergola with comfy teak furniture – and those stunning rock walls. Serenity is clearly the mood here.  For me, the various seating areas – and there are quite a few in this garden – bring to mind Katerina’s mentor John Brookes, who himself espoused the philosophy of California landscape architect Thomas Church. “Gardens are for people.”   This garden is most definitely for people, and the plants play a useful but secondary role.

It’s difficult to decide whether to climb up the house steps or head down into the garden but let’s go upstairs to the terrace around the house and get our bearings. Here we look back at the gate and driveway.  I love the lushness just a few containers bring to a setting like this.

Now look south. Though I can’t make out details, I can tell you that there are a lot of olive trees on that hillside, for Kardamyli is very close to Kalamata – and if it weren’t for this region, Greek salads the world over would be very sad indeed.

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Let’s walk along the terrace to the dining table. Here’s the view down the hill out over the little church of Aghia Sophia west to the sea. The church gives its name to this small village.

Summer temperatures here on the Mani Peninsula are hot so plants in pots need to be especially tough. These lovely succulents fit that bill. Gutters direct rainwater from the roof into an underground cistern; in hot periods, that water can be pumped into needy areas of the garden.

Looking down towards the garden, below, and what Katerina calls a “series of amphiteatrical steps” leading to a naturally-filtered swimming pool, we see Mediterranean plants she has selected for year-round interest and their ability to survive drought. The soil for the planting beds came largely from the level below near the old olive and fig trees. And we see how the various garden and sitting areas are informed by grid, another John Brookes tenet. As Robin Lane Fox wrote in his column eulogizing Brookes:  “His drawings applied a simple ‘grid system’ to each site, basing it on proportions he found in the house or the main rooms inside. He insisted that this grid unified a garden and helped its designs to flow.”

Going down the stairs, we see another criterion Katerina looks for in plants, “…growth habit – specifically the plants’ ability to spread and soften the edges of the hard landscaping.”

To give cohesion and continuity to the design, she repeats key plants like lavender, teucrium, santolina and rosemary. Terracotta accents repeat as well.

A ‘Grassy Lassie’ aloe picks up the orange tones nicely.

Past the last cloud of blue plumbago, we’re almost down to the pool level.

I adore the hardscape treatments and the careful consideration of colour and the size of the aggregate between the pavers. They add so much to the landscape here.

Now we come to the enticing swimming pool, surrounded by figs and olive trees with the evocative Mani landscape in the background. Though it looks like a conventional pool, there is no chlorine treatment here. As Katerina says:  “The pool is filtered by a skimmer (complete with its own lizard ladder), a sand filter, which fixes the phosphates, and another bio-filter which traps particles in a series of mats.” Katerina believes this system is the first of its kind in Greece.

Just another perfect detail.

The lowest terrace hews closest to the property’s origins with an old stone aloni or grain-threshing floor as the centrepiece. Says Katerina: “Clearly many years had passed since it had been used to thresh wheat and, over time, a layer of soil containing assorted bulbs had built up, so that the rock was barely visible. This excess soil was stripped off to reveal the rock, and the bulbs replanted. Thyme is gradually being introduced and this will eventually spread and fill the fissures in the bedrock.”  Planting in the low part of the garden was begun in the autumn of 2014. The intention is to keep it looking natural so it blends with the landscape beyond and allows easy access for olive picking.

Viewed from the lower level, we see the aloni’s round contour mirrored in a new, curved, stone retaining wall, with new steps….

….. built on either side to connect the two levels.

And back towards the house, another perfect little seating area.

There are abundant wildflowers in spring on the lower level. When they’re in bloom, she cuts a path through them to allow circulation until they die down and the entire area can be cut back with a string-trimmer. Now, in November, cyclamen is in flower. I ask Katerina if she uses the fruit of the cactus pear tree or “fragosyka” (Opuntia ficus-indica) which we’ve seen growing wild troughout the Mani. “I don’t use the prickly pears,” she says “as I find the flavour very bland, and not worth effort of cleaning them, but one of the locals sometimes comes and picks them”. A final look around the old part of the garden with its rustic gate opening…

… and we head up the stairs. I spy a rough plank bench in a niche with French lavender nestled against it, and I think how lovely it would be to sit there on a summer’s day as the warmth of the Mani sun traps the fragrance. And I note the perfect cascading burro’s tail (Sedum morganianum) and the allium seedheads at a door, a memory from another season in a beautiful Greek garden that honours memory and celebrates place.