You can take the gardener out of Oxfordshire, but can you take Oxfordshire out
of the gar-dener? That was the question facing Gina Price, whose beautifully
planted borders at Pettifers, near Banbury, have won considerable acclaim,
when she began to design a garden for her Corfu home. “I keep reminding
myself that this is an olive grove I am gardening in,” she says. “I want the
garden to blend into the landscape.”
Price’s devotion to Pettifers, the farmhouse where she lives with her husband,
James, a QC, has earned the garden two-star status in The Good Gardens Guide
– up there with Hidcote Manor, Castle Howard and Sissinghurst. It even made
the front cover of this year’s edition.
Despite Price’s passion for the garden, for a decade or so James managed to
prise his wife away from her wheelbarrow to visit the Greek island of Corfu
on annual holidays. They liked the place so much that, three years ago, they
bought a 4½acre plot of land on a steep hillside near Kassiopi, northeast of
Corfu town. With Dominique Benier, a French-Moroccan architect who has lived
on the island for more than 40 years, they have built a traditional fourbed
home and a one-bed guest cottage, with two curving terraces on the slopes in
front of the house.
Corfu has been popular with the British since the 1930s (think Lawrence and
Gerald Durrell). The unspoilt northeast has been nicknamed
Kensington-on-Sea, such is the smart social life there. David Cameron and
his family took a villa there last summer; Lord Rothschild owns a property
on the headland up the road.
Price would get twitchy, however, with a G&T or a glass of ouzo in her
hand, rather than a pair of secateurs, so she and Benier have set to
creating a garden on the terraces and in the courtyard behind the house.
It is still early days, but the garden is evolving apace from the stony
hillside. “There was nothing, but nothing, here at all,” she says. Strictly
speaking, there was something – the crumbling walls of ancient terraces and
a dense covering of overgrown olive trees. Through the trees were
tantalising glimpses of the wooded shores of the island and, across a narrow
strait of the Ionian Sea, of the mountains of southern Albania, only three
miles away.
One of the most northerly Greek islands, Corfu has a high winter rainfall and
is unusually verdant for the area. The olive trees that cover the island
were introduced by the Venetians, who ruled the island for 400 years from
1386.
The twisted, gnarled trunks of some of the trees on Price’s land tell of a
long history. One of the first jobs was to clear away the dead wood. This
has allowed in more light, and, this year, for the first time since the
couple bought the land, the ground was covered, in spring, by hundreds of
tiny Iris tuberosa (hermodactylus) and carpets of cyclamen.
The trees on the terrace below the house have been pruned hard. Removing them
would have given more panoramic views, but the effect of the pruning is more
sophisticated – you catch different vistas through the frames of the trunks
and branches, rather than having it all on a plate at once. It also means
the house sits comfortably in its setting. It is hardly visible from the
road below.
Benier brought in 14,000 cubic feet of top soil from another part of the
island to cover the rocky surface of the slope. It is not perfect – Christos
Kokas, the gardener, has had to replace the handle of his pickaxe several
times, as the heavy soil bakes hard in summer, and he is likely to hit solid
rock when he gets through – but it gives the plants something to root into.
As it is a holiday house, Price has taken a different gardening route from the
high level of plantsmanship at Pettifers. Low maintenance is the key. “I
haven’t planted things like roses, as they are too much work,” she says. She
takes her lead from what the locals grow and what she can find in the
island’s nurseries.
Although the house is on mains water supply, a garden with high watering
demands is increasingly frowned on in these eco-aware times. It is also,
frankly, a drag in the heat of July and August, when temperatures can reach
37C. Splashing out on technology has its drawbacks, too. “Someone I know has
an automatic watering system and has managed to kill all their lavender, as
it doesn’t need it.” Most of the plants Price has put in need little care
now they have established. “You put something in the ground and it grows
like mad,” she says. The young citrus trees she has planted on the lower
terrace have rather caught her out, however. “I wasn’t clever with the
oranges and lemons, as they need the water. But when they are up and
running, they should be all right. I just don’t believe that the average
Greek waters their oranges and lemons when they are big.”
As with other shrubs in the garden, the citruses have a little circle of
stones around the planting hole. This keeps the water from draining all over
the terrace in summer and stops the plant being washed away by the winter
torrents. In December, January and February, “it rains like mad”, Price
says. “You can hardly go out in it.” She and James hope to build a second
tank later this year, to collect this water for the summer months.
The garden at Pettifers is all about weaving colours and textures together to
maintain interest over the year, as most plants flower for only a few weeks
in Britain. In Corfu, where Price is starting from scratch, she has the room
to group single species en masse and can take advantage of plants that will
go on for four or five months. “In England, I plant in groups of three or
five,” she says. “Here I plant 25.”
Examples include a whole wall above the back terrace covered with dark-blue Plumbago
auriculata, which will flower from early summer to October, and the group of
20 oleanders that lines the winding drive down the hill and will flower from
now until November.
Next to the house is a simple gravel-mulched area planted with curving lines
of santolina, in varying tones of silvery green, to reflect the colour of
the olive leaves around it. “I can’t really grow it in England, as my soil
is too good,” says Price, who will remove the garish yellow flowers when
they appear. Soon the bushes will blend into each other in a low, bumpy
hedge. In the bottom corner are narrow columns of cypress, again found in
the wild, dotting the island, but here providing a focal point for the
border.
Price’s pride and joy is the unusual lavender, Lavandula pinnata. “It
will flower all year round if you deadhead it and there is a mild winter,”
she says. “It has dark-purple flowers and unusual filigree leaves. Its one
disadvantage is that it is not strongly scented.”
The garden is not all about tasteful blues and silvery colours. The Prices’
winter trips to India have given her a taste for bold colour. In one corner
of the lower terrace is a group of oranges, including lantana, the Cape
honeysuckle (Tecomaria capensis), and a drift of cheery gazenias. The red
bottle-brush flowers of callistemon provide a contrast to the rocky terrain
of the woodland upper terraces and, in the sheltered courtyard behind the
house, where there are no views further than the walls, she has gone to town
with bright-red geraniums, deep-purple bougainvilleas and a mass of purple
osteospernum in front of red hibiscus.
Price and Kokas have both come on a long journey – she to work with a new
palette, he to learn about gardening at all (not a Greek tradition),
especially the joys of weeding. “He knew so little when he came and he has
learnt such a lot,” says Price. “Once I have told him something, he doesn’t
do it again. He has a genuine love of plants and the outside, which you need
to have as a gardener.”
As for Price herself? “I remember when I was on my hands and knees, sorting
out the lavender at Christmas, and I looked across at the snow on top of the
mountains in Albania, with the most amazing light shining on them. I
thought, I will never garden anywhere more beautiful.”
Southern comfort: tips for gardens on the Med
- It is essential to mulch in to keep in moisture. Gravel is cheap to buy and
makes it much easier to pull out the weeds.
- Go with the conditions you have, rather than fighting them, otherwise you
will be wasting your time. Don’t overwater once your plants are established.
Pots need watering and are high-maintenance, so keep them to a minimum.
- Oleanders are wonderful as a screen and flower from May until October. Many
English people don’t use them – they probably think they are too common –
but in two years, they will be above head height. Be careful when you are
pruning, as every bit is poisonous.
- You don’t need great knowledge about the plants. Keep your eyes open when
you drive around the area and see what is growing well.
