A harmonious Dorset rose garden designed by Isabel and Julian Bannerman
Enfolded in a wonderful, lost Dorset valley, Upper Sydling House feels as though it is in another world. Dwarfed by the chalk downland that rises up gently on either side of the ice-scoured, U-shaped valley, the house plays to its landscape, with a garden that is bold enough to hold its own, but at the same time feels completely comfortable in its setting. The garden is the creation of Alastair and Susanne Cooper, who moved here in 2005 to start an organic farm. Surrounded by hundreds of acres of regeneratively managed pastureland and species-rich meadow, the formal gardens around the house are the jewel in the crown, with beautiful, colour-saturated borders, sweeping lawns and, most significantly, an extraordinary number of roses.
With very little garden to build on when they got there, the Coopers decided to create a large walled garden where there had been a concrete farmyard. Enclosed by brick and flint walls, the sheltered walled space is now a haven of high-quality horticulture, incorporating vegetable, cut flower and stock beds within a picture-perfect framework of herbaceous borders set around a central water feature. Box spheres create formal structure to anchor the flowery masses that by midsummer are barely contained within the framework of the beds. Huge mounds of roses, such as ‘Reine des Violettes’, ‘Ispahan’ and ‘La Ville de Bruxelles’, draw you in as you walk past, their perfume heavy in the air, while yet more roses clamber up arches and pergolas, and drape themselves luxuriantly over the surrounding walls.
With the walled garden finished, Susanne was keen to begin work on the garden at the back of the house – a large expanse of flat lawn that opened up to the landscape. ‘It desperately needed some structure. I wanted it to match the walled garden in terms of colour and seasonal interest, but with a different planting palette,’ she says. Having fallen in love with Isabel and Julian Bannerman’s former garden at Hanham Court, she decided to approach the couple for their design ideas. More than a decade later, this area is an amalgam of the Bannermans’ elegant style and Susanne’s exuberant planting, linking effortlessly with the walled garden and echoing its floral exuberance.
Sixteen towering yew beehives now populate this lawned area with herbaceous borders at the back of the house – known as the topiary garden. Beautiful oak gates and fin-ials were added either side of the main lawn, making more of the entrance to the walled garden and framing a pastoral view to the sloping fields on the other side. Separated from the topiary garden by a flint wall topped with classic Bannerman green-oak balustrades, there is an enclosed and more intimate space immediately behind the house. This is the rill garden, which is bisected by a narrow stone-edged canal, with a gentle green, white and silver planting to contrast with the vibrancy of the herbaceous borders beyond. Throughout this area, oak obelisks and finials offer opportunities to train more climbing roses, such as pale-faced ‘Mary Delany’ and rosy-cheeked ‘Constance Spry’.
Susanne has always been passionate about roses and has over 120 different varieties and 400 individual plants, which inhabit almost every corner of this extravagantly planted garden. ‘When I began gardening, I quickly became addicted,’ she admits. ‘I visited gardens like Mottisfont and Sissinghurst, and read lots of books. I was constantly thinking about colours and how they sit together, but Isabel always told me not to worry about colours so much.’
Most of the roses planted initially were repeat-flowering English roses from David Austin, but as the planting has matured, Susanne has also fallen in love with old-fashioned roses like ‘Cardinal de Richelieu’ and ‘William Lobb’, which flower only once. She has a ruthless approach to experimen-tation. ‘If a rose isn’t healthy here, it comes out and I try something else.’ A more recent addition is ‘Royal Jubilee’, a shrub rose that has deep pink, ball-shaped blooms through the summer. Inevitably, her roses need an intensive maintenance programme in the growing season; they are sprayed every couple of weeks with a soap-based pesticide mixed with neem oil to ward off pests and every alternate week with a seaweed fertiliser. The task of pruning and training starts in November and continues until mid-February.
The planting of the herbaceous borders at the back of the house is evolving as time goes on, most recently with the help of Sissinghurst head gardener Troy Scott Smith, who leads some of Susanne’s popular gardening and floristry courses here. They have refined the planting in these borders to bring in a mix of perennials and annuals for an extended season of interest, working within the framework of yew beehives, roses and scented shrubs. Delphiniums, foxgloves and pink willowherb give the borders a relaxed, cottage-garden feel, while smaller, delicate plants such as Omphalodes linifolia weave around, with Campanula patula and Dianthus superbus at the foot of the roses to lend a softer, more naturalistic look.
The colours in these borders are finely tuned to satisfy Susanne’s artistic eye, with infinite shades of pinks and purples contrasting with touches of white, lime green and the occasional – very occasional – hint of yellow. It is not a surprise to hear that, in addition to gardening, Susanne is enjoying exploring a new hobby – painting. ‘This is providing a wonderful distraction to help switch off from the garden,’ she explains. ‘I’m constantly thinking of new ideas, looking for new plants and editing the planting schemes.’ It is surely this heightened connection, this drive for perfection, that makes the garden at Upper Sydling House so special.
For information about events and courses at Dorset Walled Garden, visit dorsetwalledgarden.co.uk
Eva Nemeth1/7Situated in the idyllic Sydling valley, the Georgian farmhouse overlooks a small lake with views of the countryside beyond.
Eva Nemeth2/7The view from a bedroom window, overlooking the rill garden. Previously a flat expanse of lawn, the area beyond this is now divided into distinct areas with generous herbaceous borders, which Susanne plants with the help of Troy Scott Smith. Pleached limes mark the perimeter of another lawned area. Each wall, boundary or vertical space is seen as an opportunity for more roses.
Eva Nemeth3/7Pink R. ‘Royal Jubilee’ is the vibrant focal point in this grouping of roses.
Eva Nemeth4/7Self-seeded erigeron and white valerian soften the steps that lead from the walled garden up to the topiary garden, with white Rosa ‘Wedding Day’ and pink R. ‘May Queen’ framing the gateway above pots planted with claret geraniums set off by purple heliotrope and verbena.
Eva Nemeth5/7Box domes and hornbeam pillars create elegant evergreen structure in this area of the garden, with lime Alchemilla mollis and Euphorbia seguieriana, purple nepeta and a red Rosa rugosa edging the paths. At the far end, a greenhouse presides over the kitchen garden.
Eva Nemeth6/7Rosa ‘Mary Delany’ adorns an oak obelisk.
Eva Nemeth7/7The far end of the rill garden is marked by a Portland-stone water feature and oak balustrading wreathed in pale ‘Little Rambler’ and ‘Perennial Blush’ roses, echoed by a backdrop of R. ‘Polyantha Grandiflora’.
