If there’s one way to spot an American abroad when visiting their house or garden, it’s in the design efficiency. Just as Americans introduced heat and comfort to English country houses a hundred years ago, so Dan and Catherine Desmond’s American background is betrayed by the 1,000-liter water tank and bespoke gutters at their house in the Cotswolds. A new build that was shoehorned into the back alley of a very pretty and ancient market town, it is also rather different from its neighbors in the way the garden looks.
Catherine is a keen and knowledgeable gardener (she is British, while her husband is American; they both worked in Pennsylvania state government for many years). The plot around their new home had been the walled garden to a grand house and there were some fruit trees left over, but otherwise it was waiting for a plan. Catherine knew she wanted the garden to serve the greater ecosystem, of which she and her husband were only a part. She also knew that at 79, she didn’t want to waste time with mistakes, so she called in our friend, the garden designer James Alexander-Sinclair. Their working relationship was collaborative. The first thing they did was put in a pond, which takes up to one-third of the garden.
We went over for a visit.
Photography by Britt Willoughby.
Above: Catherine describes the garden’s composition as “a pond, a wild bit, a garden-y bit, and an eating bit.” Kniphofia in its many varieties features strongly in the garden-y bit, shown here with Helenium ‘Moorheim Beauty’. Kniphofia’s strappy leaves lose themselves amid grasses; weeds are moved out of the way when new plants come in. Above: James sums up the garden implementation thus: “We built a very large pond as a first step, and then layered the planting in amongst the tussocky wild grasses, thistles, bindweed, et cetera. Catherine does weed but is not ruled by the need to.” Catherine: “I brought in James to stop me from making horrible mistakes. I didn’t have time to make mistakes.” Above: Shown here, a small frog makes use of the protective cover of bindweed. “The principle behind the garden is one of living with the weeds rather than fighting against them,” says James. “Anything that comes in is welcome to stay,” says Catherine, although she does have a few caveats, including ground elder. The prominent pond provides drama and theater. “There are dragon and damsel flies, frogs, and all kinds of living creatures that have made the pond their home,” says Catherine. Above: The gutters, just in view on the right, are a point of pride for Dan. “We both have a fairly deep background in green building design and energy conservation, alternative energy, and energy efficiency.” Therefore, the gutters work: “They can drain through a very long way away because they are seamless, and no debris gets in because of screens on top.” The storage tank is for irrigation but its overflow also feeds the pond. When the pond fills, an underground soakaway (dry well) also keeps rainwater on site, instead of adding to the pressure of drains.
Above: Catherine persuaded James that she wanted the planting to be put in as screens, changing the perspective as you move around it, while adding a sense of depth. “He went along with what I was doing,” says Catherine. “When he came back the next year, he wandered through, muttering, ‘It is a garden. It really is. An eccentric one, but it’s a garden.’ I think he was surprised.” Above: Of the client-designer relationship, Catherine recalls: “Very often it was a case of me saying, ‘This is what I want. Can you help me do this?’ So, I would have put in a much too small a pond, and it would have been regular in shape. That was quite bold, putting in such a big one.” Above: Catherine has been interested to see reactions to her garden, in the context of where she is, in the Cotswolds. “Owners of tidy, traditional gardens have said, ‘Ah.’ But an awful lot of people have come in, all sorts of people you wouldn’t expect, like the guy who owns the solar panel company who did ours, and they’ve all said, ‘Oh…!’ And they’re not just the younger folks who seem to get it; it’s some of the older ones, too. I would say it’s been 80 percent positive, actually.”
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