The gardens at Hertfordshire’s Alswick Hall have been lovingly restored and redesigned by Annie Johnson and her garden team to create a colourful confection of flowers and plants to enjoy all year round
WORDS ZIA ALLAWAY PHOTOGRAPHS ANNA OMIOTEK-TOTT
Steeped in history, the Alswick Hall Estate near Buntingford in Hertfordshire was mentioned in the 11th-century Domesday Book, and its 16th-century property was said to have been visited by Queen Elizabeth I. Since then, it has passed through generations of families, a religious order, the Crown and a series of farmers. The current custodians, Annie and Mike Johnson, took possession of the estate about 20 years ago and have sensitively renovated the house to make it their own. Annie has also overseen the development of the five-acre garden, transforming it into a series of colourful themed spaces, while Mike and his team farm the surrounding land.
“We are the second generation of Johnsons to live here, having inherited the property from Mike’s parents,” explains Annie. “Prior to that we lived a few miles away with our three children and Mike worked with his father on the farm.” It was, however, a Mr and Mrs Fry, the owners before Mike’s parents, who restored the Grade II listed Tudor-style house you see today and installed the bones of the garden. “The Frys built the terraces that lead down to the pond and lawns, and planted many of the hedges and trees,” says Annie. “But, for me, the style was too formal. My mother was a great gardener, and I loved her more relaxed cottage-style borders and wanted to have the same colourful displays here.”
Annie recognised that to achieve her plans for the garden, she would need some help. “I didn’t feel I was knowledgeable enough to do it on my own – the garden was my hobby, not my job – and luckily, I found local horticulturist David Austrin, who had studied at Kew. David had never run a garden before, but together we set about transforming the space next to the 16th-century barn with a large 15m herbaceous border known as the Jubilee Border because we finished it in 2012, the late Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year.
“We designed it using a strip of lining wallpaper rolled out along the dining table and stuck on post-it notes of the plants we wanted to include. It’s a soft fusion of pinks, mauves and silvers, starting in spring with tulips and followed later by
