Icon - Arrow LeftAn icon we use to indicate a rightwards action. Icon - Arrow RightAn icon we use to indicate a leftwards action. Icon - External LinkAn icon we use to indicate a button link is external. Icon - MessageThe icon we use to represent an email action. Icon - Down ChevronUsed to indicate a dropdown. Icon - CloseUsed to indicate a close action. Icon - Dropdown ArrowUsed to indicate a dropdown. Icon - Location PinUsed to showcase a location on a map. Icon - Zoom OutUsed to indicate a zoom out action on a map. Icon - Zoom InUsed to indicate a zoom in action on a map. Icon - SearchUsed to indicate a search action. Icon - EmailUsed to indicate an emai action. Icon - FacebookFacebooks brand mark for use in social sharing icons. flipboard Icon - InstagramInstagrams brand mark for use in social sharing icons. Icon - PinterestPinterests brand mark for use in social sharing icons. Icon - TwitterTwitters brand mark for use in social sharing icons. Icon - Check MarkA check mark for checkbox buttons.
You are reading

Garden Visit: 9 Ideas to Steal from the Bravura Planting at Gravetye Manor in Sussex

Search

Start typing to search...

Search
England

Garden Visit: 9 Ideas to Steal from the Bravura Planting at Gravetye Manor in Sussex

May 11, 2023

During a cold and extremely wet English spring, we revisited Gravetye Manor. The bucolic Sussex estate—with 36 acres of flower gardens, meadows, mixed borders, lawns, and a vast one and a half acre elliptical walled kitchen garden—surrounds a country house hotel that is set in a wider 1,000-acre estate. All of it was once owned and nurtured by the prolific Victorian writer and garden maker William Robinson, whose books espoused naturalistic planting and gardening in tune with nature.

For the past 13 years, the prodigiously talented Tom Coward has overseen a team of six other gardeners to restore and reimagine this heritage garden. The Great Dixter alumnus has reinvigorated the kitchen garden, which was covered in brambles and weeds by the time he arrived here in 2010, and injected vigor and bravura planting into vibrant borders and electrifying meadows. Even on a damp, cool spring day there were fresh ideas in all directions.

Photography by Clare Coulson.

1. Use bulbs as your paintbox.

Above: Tom’s choreography of the garden ensures that at any given time there is something to marvel at. In May it’s the sea of camassias that light up the orchard. Under heritage fruit trees, thousands of C. leichtlinii caerulea rise up, creating a vivid blue understory just as the pink-tinged blossom of the apple trees unfurls. This is high impact, low maintenance gardening—the camassia bulbs will naturalize over time and require little care. Their foliage is left to die back amongst the long orchard grasses.

2. Create structures with waste materials.

Above: Successional planting on a grand scale means that the flower borders closest to the hotel are constantly changing. Natural plant supports, woven with pruned birch or hazel clippings, keep the largest perennials fully supported as they grow. But until then their nest like structures bring some sculptural shape and height to the borders.

3. Place an eye-catcher to create a vista.

Above: The view as guests step out into the lawn and flower borders is breath-taking, whatever the season. Pots are clustered around the old oak door with a color-themed display of seasonal bulbs, annuals, or perennials but a central sundial ensures that eyes are pulled out to the longer view—in this case, a pergola with a white wisteria , ‘Shiro Noda’, yet to bloom.

4. Plan for statement-making plantings.

Above: Plants can act as eye-catchers, too. Amongst the spring bulbs and emerging foliage, the lime zing of Euphorbia characias wulfenii stands out. Its enormous chartreuse flower heads bring a much needed color pop in spring. Once these stems are cut back in late June or July, only a dome of glaucous foliage remains. They prefer free-draining soil and a sunny position.

5. Marry plants with objects.

Above: Punctuate key elements in the garden with more plants. At Gravetye, the gardeners are lucky to work with many stone features that have been in the garden for more than a century. Here Clematis armandii, with its beautiful emerging bronze foliage, wraps around an elaborate stone finial.
Above: The towering brick wall that edges the long border can also be seen, as pictured, from the lawns that sit at a much higher level too. A sprawling rose, trained along the top of the wall, gently embellishes the mellow old stone from it’s first flush of foliage through to its summer blooms.

6. Weave in flowers.

Above: A patchwork of spring bulbs gives a lighter effect than big clumps. Here Tom has dotted jewel toned tulips—including ‘Bleu Amiable’ and the two-toned ‘Slawa’—throughout herbaceous borders. As the foliage of other plants rises up, they provide a lush green backdrop before finally enveloping the tulips as they fade.

7. Go for height.

Above: Structural forms are useful in spring. Here Angelica is dotted throughout the flower garden bringing much needed height at the start of the season and visual interest with its beautiful stems and otherworldly flower heads.

8. Know your plants—like, really know them.

Above: Who would have thought that a cherry could be treated as a low growing flowering shrub? Tom uses Prunus glandulosa ‘Alba Plena’ as a repeated plant through the steep banks outside the hotel’s Michelin-starred restaurant. It is smothered with white blossom in spring and then cut back to the ground after which it will produce new foliage over summer followed by autumn color.

9. Don’t forget about the crevices.

Above: Use every planting opportunity. The Long Border’s stone wall backdrop is dotted with tiny plants including Erigeron karvinskianus, ferns, Forget-Me-Not, and wild strawberries. (See The Garden Decoder: What Is ‘Crevice Gardening’?)

See also:

(Visited 9,434 times, 1 visits today)
You need to login or register to view and manage your bookmarks.
Add to Collection
New Collection

Explore Deeper Into These Areas

Previous Post

The Garden Decoder: What Is the 'Hardening Off' Process?

May 10, 2023
Next Post

Ask the Expert: Conservationist Matthew Shepherd on Protecting Beneficial Insects

May 12, 2023

Have a Question or Comment About This Post?

Join the conversation

Related Stories

Read all recent posts

join us on Instagram Logo

gardenista_sourcebook

Sourcebook for Cultivated Living, sister site to @remodelista
Tag us using #gardenista 🌿🌱

Gardens & Outdoor Living

v5.0

×
Join the Remodelista Family of Websites

Become a Member at no charge

When you register as a free Member of the Remodelista family of websites (Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home), you gain access to all current posts plus 10 archived posts per month, our internal bookmarking tool, and the community bulletin board.

Member benefits include:

  • Access to all posts published in the past year
  • Access 10 archived posts (older than one year) per month on each site
  • Use of our internal bookmark tool, so you can save products, posts, and other pages for quick reference
  • Access to our community bulletin board so you can ask and answer design-related questions
  • Unlimited access to the Product Catalogs, Design Travel sources, and Architect & Designer Directory listings
  • Choose from our ten newsletters to keep up with the latest on the sites

Or Subscribe for Maximum Value!

For $5/month ($59.99 paid annually) you'll enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home and all the benefits of Membership.



Subscriber benefits include:

  • Unlimited access to all three sites
  • Weekly access to subscriber-only content
  • Ad-free browsing environment
  • Unrestricted access to 30,000+ archived posts
  • Receive the full-text daily newsletters
  • All features that Members have access to
  • Annual subscribers pay 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
×
Subscribe to the Remodelista family of websites

For $5/month ($59.99 paid annually) you'll enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home and all the benefits of Membership.



Subscriber benefits include:

  • Unlimited access to all three sites
  • Weekly access to subscriber-only content
  • Ad-free browsing environment
  • Unrestricted access to 30,000+ archived posts
  • Receive the full-text daily newsletters
  • All features that Members have access to
  • Annual subscribers pay 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99
×
Sorry! As a registered member you get 10 free posts from our archive (posts more than a year old) every 30 days. You have reached your limit for this 30-day period. If you would like to access unlimited posts from the archive (ad free, too), become a subscriber today, and keep reading as many articles as you want.

Full Access Individual Subscription

Benefits include:

  • Unlimited access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home sites
  • Ad-free browsing environment
  • Unrestricted access to 30,000+ archived posts
  • Receive the full-text daily newsletters
  • All features that Members have access to
  • Annual subscribers pay just 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99


×
Sorry! You have reached your limit of three (3) free posts from our archive every 30 days. You can increase this to 10 posts by joining as a free Member, or read unlimited posts with no ads by becoming a paid Subscriber.

Subscribe to the Remodelista family of websites

For $5/month ($59.99 paid annually) you'll enjoy unlimited, ad-free access to Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home and all the benefits of Membership.



Subscriber benefits include:

  • Unlimited access to all three sites
  • Weekly access to subscriber-only content
  • Unrestricted access to 30,000+ archived posts
  • Receive the full-text daily newsletters
  • All features that Members have access to
  • Annual subscribers pay 50% off the monthly subscription price of $9.99

Become a Member at no charge

When you register as a free Member of the Remodelista family of websites (Remodelista, Gardenista, and The Organized Home), you gain access to all current posts plus 10 archived posts per month, our internal bookmarking tool, and the community bulletin board.

Member benefits include:

  • Access to all posts published in the past year
  • Access 10 archived posts (older than one year) per month on each site
  • Use of our internal bookmark tool, so you can save products, posts, and other pages for quick reference
  • Access to our community bulletin board so you can ask and answer design-related questions
  • Unlimited access to the Product Catalogs, Design Travel sources, and Architect & Designer Directory listings
  • Choose from our ten newsletters to keep up with the latest on the sites

My Account

Your member profile is powered by memberstack