Garden TOUR
Gardener Heather Frances has created a unique garden on a steep slope, filled with a tapestry of lush planting
As many gardeners will testify, working with a slope of any nature can be a tricky proposition. And a garden such as that belonging to Heather Frances would fill many with absolute dread. At somewhere between a quarter and a third of an acre, it’s completely sloping from front to back, yet for Heather it has posed no problems. Evergreens and grasses punctuate the slope, giving a year-round presence around which Heather can plant up lots of colour.
“I think evergreens are important in any garden,” she says. “I love the cottage garden with masses of planting and lots of colour, but those evergreens make a big difference later in the year when nothing else is happening. They give the garden a real structure.”
And while that’s very true, it’s in summer that this garden comes into its own, with dense planting that takes the breath away. A host of flowers, including sweet peas, violas, crocosmia, alstroemeria, salvias, campion and erigeron, bloom away happily on the plot that Heather gardens completely organically.
At the base of the slope behind the house, a plethora of pots adorn the patio with an explosion of colour from petunias, osteospermums, cosmos, fuchsias and pelargoniums.
“Someone said the way everything tilts towards the house and the patio gives it a tapestry effect, which I suppose is what I wanted to create,” says Heather. The artfully placed collection of summer-flowering plants in containers provides a seamless transition between the foot of the slope and the beginning of the patio, softening the edges of the hard landscaping and creating a wonderful flow of varied planting.
