Garden Design - incorporating innovative garden design techniques to protect from the damaging effects of prevailing winds

The garden at Winsford Walled Garden was designed by Mike ('muddywellies') Gilmore. The design is influenced by a number of important factors; the weather, the garden's location, the cottage garden design style and last, but by no means least, 'it's what I want'.

The garden design style at Winsford Walled Garden draws heavily from the cottage garden style yet it is unique. Within the framework of its magnificent Victorian garden walls, which are festooned with sub-tropical climbers and clematis, there is a hidden world of protective shrubbery and unusual perennials amidst almost sublime hard landscaping like the circular brick patio with the brick pathway snaking away towards the enormous pergola made from foot-thick timbers and the 6 inch thick columns of slate rising majestically. Once in a while one of the twelve coniferous steeples will burst through the planting heading skywards and throughout all the excitement this garden creates, a 5ft wide meandering path runs through it like a country stream, opening new vistas at every turn.

Some borders are up to 30ft deep, all of them are mixed and crammed with unusual herbaceous perennials and shrubbery. The general theme of individual spaces running through the gardens is both harmonious and practical. Harmonious because there are no distinct hedges creating definitive garden rooms. Instead, these spaces are like the pages of a book which you can leaf through. Move seamlessly from one garden section to another and move from one chapter to another. Practical, because visitors can view the numerous individual spaces and can easily imagine the same planted space transplanted in to their own plot. This is Winsford Walled Garden.

Patience is often rewarded in the garden
The gardener must be patient, yet I find I'm constantly wishing my life away! Next year I'll add such and such, it will be even better next year, I find myself repeating such phrases every year! But from the outset, the design has been attentive to the forces of nature. This Zone 9a garden is located on the north side of Dartmoor at 600ft above sea level. It does snow here, but not for very long. Winter winds are frequent and can be very damaging, and for this reason during the garden's early development, our preferred planting often had to wait until the necessary protective shrubs had grown sufficiently to provide the requisite cover. For example, clematis could not survive the summer heat on the walls until sufficient shade plants had grown for them to scramble through. Similarly, the supporting shrubs are now mature and already over fifty varieties of clematis have been started and even more are due be introduced.

Wind Protection by design

Unless a garden is fortunate to have a long vista that stretches to a horizon well beyond the garden's perimeter, I personally, do not like straight lines in the garden. Be they straight borders, straight walks, straight hedges, whatever. Particularly in a windswept location, any straight, parallel hedge design will accelerate any wind travelling along its length. Compare any straight hedge you've ever seen with the curved conifer bank on the left and you will see what I mean. And that hedge was only planted in August, 1999!

There is no Yew in the garden. It reminds me of grave yards and it does not do anything. I believe there are now available today much better plants that grow quicker, are easier to maintain, and have a variegated foliage - 'nuff said. Consequently, I have used elaegnus, berberis, viburnum and pittosporums plants to provide the requisite wind protection. They are not planted in straight lines, but staggered, and as such they still offer the same wind protection, but it's not nearly so obvious.

Vary the height in your garden
The walled garden now contains around a dozen, tall, very narrow conifers that don't take up masses of garden space, yet provide variation and vertical structure - particularly in winter. After six years they are all at the threshold of breaking out and above the surrounding shrubbery, and will soon have an increasing effect.

Not garden rooms but garden pages
Garden designers will talk of 'Garden Rooms' where visitors cross from one clearly defined area into another, the use of tall hedging is something of a prerequisite for such designs. Here at Winsford we prefer to have a more natural looking flow from one area of the garden into another. From the outset the anology we wished to use is that of turning the pages of a book. Curving paths help to create the smooth flow we wanted in the garden walking from page to page. Then, occasionally, the visitor turns to a whole new 'chapter'.

A question of relativity
I was invited to talk before a group of Russian garden designers in the beautiful city of St Petersburg, and got into trouble talking about plant hardiness. Before I realised it, I found myself saying things like 'half hardy' and 'frost hardy' and my audience was highly amused. Eventually, a quiet voice asked.
"What temperture do you consider 'hardy'? And I belatedly realised my error.
"Minus fifeteen centigrade". I replied.
Which immediately brought the house down.
The next day they took me to the fabulous gardens at nearby Peterhof. Where they put protective timber boxes around all the BRONZE STATUES for the winter. 'Brass monkeys' you'd better believe it!