Swindon Village garden with an iarray of perennials

It’s the bold use of colour that strikes me first at Linda Marsh’s garden. Red, purple, yellow, orange and pink are mixed in borders that sweep across the site towards distant views of the Cotswold hills. It’s refreshing change from the usual palette of pastels I encounter.

It’s not the only thing that’s different. Rather than being divided into ‘garden rooms’, the plot of just over half an acre is treated as a whole, with the height of plants the only thing guiding views through.

Then there’s the choice of plants. Not the roses, shrubs and clipped box of so many Cotswold gardens but grasses and large drifts of perennials that seem to bleed out into neighbouring fields.

Views across to the Cotswold hills are one of the garden’s hightlights (Image: Mandy Bradshaw) ‘It’s more looking beyond just the plant you’re looking at,’ explains Linda.

Surprisingly, the garden is only five years old, carved out of little more than an area of rough grass on the site of a former stables.

Such is the growth of the plants, you’d be forgiven for believing it was far more mature. This progress is down to the groundwork Linda put in before she began planting.

Rubble and poor soil were dug out from the site and replaced with tonnes of manure and imported topsoil. Land drains laid on top of the underlying clay mean the site never floods, while annually mulching with well-rotted manure keeps the soil in top condition, and an outer boundary of rabbit-proof fencing protects the plants.

Borders are a glorious mix of colour, height and form (Image: Mandy Bradshaw) A former garden designer, Linda moved to the house at Swindon Village when she outgrew her previous garden in the heart of Cheltenham.

‘It was a very small garden. I thought I could manage with it, but I couldn’t,’ she admits.

It took her some years to find the right place but now she has the space to indulge her love of perennials, which she has planted on a grand scale.

Allium lusitanicum ‘Summer Beauty’ fronts a border with shades of purple punctuated by orange and red (Image: Mandy Bradshaw) Curved beds, divided by wide grass paths, are filled with plants that offer a range of differing colours, heights and forms. There are the flat heads of Selinum wallichianum, Achillea ‘Credo’ and hylotelephium. Geranium ‘Rozanne’ and Allium lusitanicum ‘Summer Beauty’ hug the ground while echinops, phlomis and bronze fennel add a vertical dimension.

Then there’s the colour mix: yellow kniphofia sat next to pink lythrum; cerise phlox rising out of orange helenium.

‘I didn’t want soft colours everywhere,’ explains Linda. ‘I wanted to have brighter colours.’

It works thanks to the large blocks of colour – Linda plants in sevens or nines rather than the usual three or five – and the use of grasses, which soften everything.

Early morning sun lights up the borders (Image: Mandy Bradshaw) ‘I’ve gone for a lot of grasses because I love them and they stand up to the wind. They also give me the most amazing show in late summer and into the autumn.’

Stipa gigantea is repeated across the borders, there’s the striking lime-green Sesleria autumnalis, tall Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’, graceful Molinia ‘Transparent’ and M. ‘Edith Dudszus’ – ‘It didn’t look much when I first bought it but now it’s really come into its own.’

It’s a garden that’s heavily influenced by the new perennial planting style of Piet Oudolf while Linda attributes her bold use of colour to Christopher Lloyd’s work at Great Dixter.

Planting wraps around a small area of lawn and a curved seat (Image: Mandy Bradshaw) ‘He wasn’t afraid to try different things,’ says Linda, who in the past has created a garden for RHS Hampton Court and a Chelsea exhibit for the Hardy Plant Society.

Her garden looks at its best from mid-June to November with plants chosen to keep the interest going. Helenium ‘Loysder Wieck’ is a later flowering variety, and Aster x frikartii ‘Mönch’ is a autumn star. Then over winter, the seedheads of the grasses and the architectural shape of things such as phlomis come to the fore until Linda and her part-time gardener Katherine Sowerby cut everything down in time for the first snowdrops.

The garden style may not be typical Cotswolds but there’s little unusual among the plant choices. Many are varieties that are commonly grown, such as Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’, persicaria and Verbena bonariensis – ‘It’s nice and it’s a very good filler.’

Perennials have to be robust and able to withstand the wind without staking (Image: Mandy Bradshaw) Plants have been selected for their ability to grow well rather than for their rarity: ‘Most of these plants are readily available,’ says Linda. ‘I’ve gone for good varieties.’

Things that have done well are often repeated as she reasons it’s worth using them again. These repetitions also help to draw the whole garden together. Sometimes, as in the case of the stipa, it’s the same plant that you encounter in different parts, at other times it’s a variation on a theme: Kniphofia ‘Tawny King’ instead of K. ‘Timothy’.

Linda has included some trees in her design, mainly sorbus and silver birch along with a dawn redwood and Liriodendron tulipifera. She would have liked to have more of her favourite trees but was restricted to those that would cope well with the very windy site. Numbers also had to be limited.

‘I can’t have too many trees as I don’t wish to put a lot of shade in the garden because it’s all perennials,’ she explains. ‘Also, I don’t want to block the fantastic view of Cleeve Hill.’

Linda’s use of bold colour was influenced by Christopher Lloyd (Image: Mandy Bradshaw) An ability to cope with the wind is also one of the considerations when choosing her perennial plants as she doesn’t stake anything.

Near the house, built to resemble the former stable block, there’s a large terrace for entertaining. Planting to one side carries on the theme of kniphofia, echinops and aster while the retaining wall is the right height and depth to be used as extra seating.

Meanwhile, the metal horse sculpture by Cumbrian artist Andrew Kay, is another nod to the site’s equestrian past.

At the far end of the garden, a native hedge of hazel, hawthorn and maple screens off the paddock, used as somewhere to get rid of the rubble and poor soil dug out of the main garden.

The height of plants is the only thing that divides the garden and channels views through (Image: Mandy Bradshaw) This area has now been seeded with a perennial wildflower mix that in summer is full of ox-eyed daisies and teasels.

‘We just let nature take its place. It’s already attracting a lot of wildlife.’

While most things are thriving, some have proved more challenging. Agastache is still an experiment: ‘I find them very fickle. Good one year and then the next they don’t really come back very well.’

Indeed, everything in her garden has to justify its place and Linda is ruthless in removing anything that isn’t working, and is constantly reassessing borders.

As she says: ‘You’re never finished in a garden.’

The Stables opens for the National Garden Scheme. Details at ngs.org.uk

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Aster × frikartii ‘Mönch’ (Image: Mandy Bradshaw)