A style for all seasons

Above: The topiary pig always raises a smile

Above: The welcoming display along the drive

Above: The Trough Garden provides sanctuary for smaller plants

It is all too easy to pigeonhole gardens as summer performers or best seen in spring. Rodmarton Manor is one that refuses to be labelled with just one season. While it is known for its snowdrop collection and stunning summer borders, it is just as beautiful at other times of year.

The garden was created when the Arts and Crafts manor house was built in the early 20th century and it has been tended by three generations of the Biddulph family. Over the years, there have been only minor changes and much of the original design remains.

“I think if the old people came back they would recognise pretty well what they created in the first place,” comments Simon Biddulph, the current owner.

The eight-acre plot is divided into a series of garden ‘rooms’ with hedges of holly, beech and yew acting as walls. These smaller areas allow changes of mood, while the more intimate feel adds to the romance of the garden.

One area that tries to span the seasons is the Leisure Garden, a series of small beds and narrow paths with a wide range of planting. “There’s meant to be all year round interest.”

The year begins with many of Rodmarton’s collection of snowdrops. The garden has 150 different varieties, including ‘Ransom’, ‘Cinderdine’ and ‘Mary Biddulph’. These are followed by hellebores, anemones, celandines, and leucojum. The emerging foliage of cut-leaf elder – cut down to size every year – and golden physocarpus – dazzling against the dark trunk of Prunus serrula – add another dimension of interest, while in the shade of old trees, Trillium sessile sends up sinister dark flowers.

There are peonies, hydrangeas and a bed of different viburnums. Golden shrubs, including philadelphus and Mt Etna broom, Genista aetnensis, are carefully grouped to lighten a dark area and the twisted shape of contorted hazel is good all year.

In spring, the bare ‘knuckles’ of a group of pleached limes is even more prominent, their solid shape a contrast to the delicate snake’s-head fritillaries at their feet.

If the Leisure Garden is one for all seasons, the long herbaceous borders are unashamedly a summer feature. Four deep beds with a central pool and clipped yew are filled with everything from penstemon, delphiniums and peonies to hemerocallis, sedum and crocosmia. There’s a relaxed approach to colour, with an ‘anything goes’ attitude – except for deep red and shocking pink.

“I think what you exclude rather than what you include is more important,” explains Mr Biddulph. “It is more important to get things that flower for a long time. The colour is less important.”

He is partway through a four-year revamp of this area, clearing and replanting one bed at a time and widening the grass that borders them.

“The first time you plant things you hope you’re going to like them. The second time you try to plant things you really like.”

If the colour scheme is relaxed in the herbaceous border, then the White Borders, as the name suggests, are more controlled. Starting with snowdrops and limey hellebores, the season runs on through iris, angelica, allium, cistus and lamium. Shrubs, including spiraea, deutzia and philadelphus, add bulk and scillas and black ophiopogon give much-need contrast. Meanwhile, a second weeping ash has been planted to complement an original, one of many beautiful trees in the garden.

Of the three original tennis courts – built to accommodate Edwardian tennis parties – only one remains. One is now the site of a swimming pool and the other has a croquet lawn and rockery, with spiraea, osteospermum and thyme.
“There are things flowering there all summer.”

Smaller plants, such as sempervivums and sedums, are safely housed in the Trough Garden. The 22 troughs allow close inspection of plants that would be quickly swamped in the main borders.

The nearby terrace is dominated by topiary – another legacy of the past – and this clipped art is found throughout the garden, mainly in the shape of birds.
As you move away from the house, so the garden becomes more informal. The Cherry Orchard has lost most of its namesake trees and is now mainly shrubs and drifts of spring bulbs. The Wild Garden has large hollies and mahonia and a touch of formality with a hornbeam avenue framing the vista. Rambling roses, including ‘American Pillar’, ‘New Dawn’ and ‘Sander’s White’, put on a beautiful pink and white show in summer.

Much of Mr Biddulph’s work has been to reinvigorate or repair old features and plants: an oak pergola, covered with Vitis coignetiae, has been replaced and Irish yews have been cut back to size.

In the outer kitchen garden he has introduced something new. Here, there is now a collection of trees – mainly sorbus, crab and birch – planted in neat ‘avenues’.
“It is for all year round interest with spring flowers and autumn berries.”

Original pear trees are trained against the wall and, despite their obvious age, are still productive.
More fruit trees are found in the kitchen garden – trained against the walls or edging a path, where their twisted shapes are a striking feature.

There is a mixture of fruit, vegetables and flowers – a butterfly corner of buddleia and lavender, an iris bed, peony border and rows of currants.

In one corner, a group of box cuttings has gradually grown into a flock of birds – and a magnificent pig.

“The pig always raises a bit of a smile when people come round here.”

With its two long drives – one a double beech hedge, the other clipped holly – it is clear from the outset that Rodmarton is a garden based on careful design. Yet, sometimes the most memorable features are the least contrived: alongside the drive a drift of anemones, narcissi and celandines in shades of blue and yellow was stunning in its simplicity.

Rodmarton Manor is on the A433 between Cirencester and Tetbury. The garden is open for the National Gardens Scheme on Sunday April 20 from 2pm to 5pm. Admission is £4, children aged five to 15 £1. The house and garden are open on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Bank Holidays from the beginning of May until the end of September from 2pm to 5pm. Admission to house and garden is £7, £3.50 children, garden only is £4, £1 children. No dogs. For more information, call 01285 841253 or visit www.rodmarton-manor.co.uk