An evolving work in progress, this carefully planned garden is a wonderful combination of colour, structure and symmetry
Gardens are hugely diverse in character, some elegantly cloistered to escape from the outside world, while others are open and draw on local materials, embracing the broader landscape. ‘In creating this garden, I have been influenced by our beautiful Norfolk skies and the way the light at sunrise and sunset illuminates certain plants at different times of the year,’ says Claudia Starr of her home in the village of Holmenext-the-Sea, on Norfolk’s northwest corner.
Beneath the big skies for which East Anglia is renowned, daybreak and nightfall have a singular radiance, suffusing the garden’s parterre with shafts of light that pinpoint purple salvia spires, blue catmint and voluptuous pink roses skirted by low box hedges. In the shadows, white foxgloves and the palest blue hardy geraniums shine out, while overhead, screens of pleached crab apples change with the seasons – white blossom in spring or blazing with fiery coloured fruits in autumn. ‘We chose crab apples for the interest they bring year-round – even in the depths of winter, they provide valuable food for birds,’ Claudia notes.
With grazing marshes and the sand dunes of Holme Dunes Nature Reserve on the doorstep, it is easy to understand what attracted the couple to this area. It is 13 years since they moved into Vine Cottage, with plans to extend out at the back, while carefully preserving the ancient local building materials used in the outbuildings, walls and front of the cottage.
The original front façade forms a beautiful backdrop to a long, deep border planted with pinks, blues, mauves and soft greys. Planted at the back is a delicate grey-green line of lavenders, a foil to the vivid pink flowers of Cistus x argenteus ‘Peggy Sammons’, upright violet-purple spikes of Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’ and Rosa x odorata ‘Mutabilis’, a repeat-flowering Old Rose with unusual, butterfly-like single flowers that open coppery-yellow, ageing to copperycrimson. ‘It has a very long flowering period, and the changing flower hues complement the colour of the house bricks,’ explains Claudia.
There is little doubt about her favourite flower. ‘I come from a family of rose growers, so I have to say, first and foremost, it is the rose,’ she concurs.
Born in the Netherlands, Claudia moved to the UK at the age of five, but it is in her Dutch origins that her green fingers lie. ‘My great-grandfather bred azaleas and named them after his daughters; my grandfather was a major rose grower, while my father ran a garden centre.’ She herself has learned from han
