Some people hate gardening. I can’t understand why,” says David Hodgson. “You
are out there and you forget all about everything. It’s very therapeutic.”
Many Sunday Times readers would agree, as they spend every spare moment
outside, weeding, trimming, mowing, and reaping the benefits. But if you’ve
got it, why not flaunt it? David’s garden is the first to feature in a new
series, starting today, in which we invite you to show off the fruits of
your labours – whether it’s a tiny town garden, a fantastic vegetable patch
groaning with exotic varieties or a clever collage of bedding plants.
During the 34 years he has lived with his wife, Diane, at their cottage in
Coddington, near Ledbury, in Herefordshire, David has indulged in a lot of
this “therapy”. The couple inherited the half-acre sloping garden on clay
soil from an elderly sculptor. They have transformed it from a smattering of
small flower beds into a haven of many parts: walled terraces behind the
house; a wild area of long grass, trees and shrubs; a sinuously curving
herbaceous border; a vegetable area; and a stream and bog garden, bordering
the spring that flows through the bottom of the garden. David is also a
fiend for cultivating from cuttings, and the greenhouse is crammed with
young plants.
The garden has evolved over the years. “We have been to several gardens – Beth
Chatto’s and the like – and you just get ideas,” says David, 64, a meat
inspector turned butcher. “My father used to love growing dahlias and
vegetables to keep the family fed. Gardening has always been in my blood.”
He seems to have read every gardening book there is, and meets plenty of
experts in his capacity as chairman of the local horticultural society,
based in the nearby village of Colwall. If he has one regret, it is that he
didn’t read the late Chris-topher Lloyd’s The Well-Tempered Garden when it
came out in 1970. “It is so practical,” says David, who approves of Lloyd’s
common-sense approach rather than slavishly following rules.
David and Diane, 61, are both keen gardeners, but with rather different
approaches, which can cause the occasional battle of wills. “She likes
everything to be spick and span, and I’m an untidy person, I must admit. I
tend to call her Gertrude. Sometimes she will do something, and I will say:
‘Right, Miss Jekyll, what are you doing?’ I do keep her off the garden if
she is deadheading flowers – ‘Let them seed, so they can seed around’ – but
she is getting better.”
Miss Jekyll is not in evidence to give her contrary views as we tour the
garden. One area of current debate is a border filled with the yellow
‘Korresia’ rose, until recently underplanted with Alchemilla
mollis and ‘Orange Emperor’ tulips. The rose should be trouble-free, but
it has been constantly afflicted with blackspot and is for the chop. “I
wanted to put in a Lonicera ‘Baggesen’s Gold’ cloud hedge, but my
wife didn’t agree with that, so we are going to have box.”
There is hardly a straight line at the top of the garden, so a traditional
squared-off box hedge would have looked at odds with the soft curves. Then,
earlier this year, the Hodgsons visited Barnsley House, in Gloucester-shire,
once home of the late, great gardener Rosemary Verey and now a hotel. “We
saw they had a box hedge cut into swags,” says David. And that was their
solution.
Much of the Hodgsons’ garden lies above the house, which is tucked into a
northeast-facing hillside. This can make it hard work, especially when
trying to get a wheelbarrow up to the top on a wet day, but at least
“there’s no need to go to the gym”.
The original house is about 350 years old and the Hodgsons have extended to
the rear. “We had to dig out the bank to add to the cottage,” says David. To
hold it up, they created a series of curving terraces from broken paving
slabs and stones from local quarries and the Forest of Dean. The layout for
these was sketched out by a local designer in the early 1990s for about
£150. Cistus flows over the walls, and Mexican daisies and aquilegias appear
at random between the shrubs and in crevices in the wall – David must have
hidden his wife’s weeding fork when they seeded.
On the top edge of the lawn above the house is a large cherry tree, through
which is growing a rampant ‘Seagull’ rose. There is a bench underneath, from
which the Hodgsons can sit and admire the garden and the Malvern Hills
beyond. Beside the cherry is a cedar, now about 60ft high. “When we came
here, the cedar was smaller than my wife, who is 5ft 2in,” says David. “It
is amazing.”
Another keen gardener once told him that one should look along the length of a
herbaceous border, rather than full on. David has taken this to heart: at
the bottom slope of the lawn is a herbaceous border that blends from blue
through pink into white when you look along it from the house. “I think we
will try to mix the colours up a bit more,” he says – another matter for
further discussion with Diane.
He is not convinced that an area by the terrace at the end of the border,
which is planted with silvery specimens such as santolina, is working well,
but at least one problem has been dealt with: “There was a Victoria plum,
but the plums were always dropping on your head, so I dug it out.” David
also regrets planting trained fruit trees east-west, rather than north-south
to maximise the benefit of the sun’s rays. They are going to be removed and
replaced.
Below the kitchen garden, where the vegetables are grown in raised beds to
counter the slope of the land, is David’s favourite place: the area around
the spring. Here, Japanese primula line the steps down to the stream, skunk
cabbage, angelica and gunnera thrive in the damp conditions, and arum lilies
and azaleas fill the air with their scent. There is a little stone slab on
which to sit of an evening, hidden from the rest of the world. “You hear the
water dripping over the stones and it gives you that sense of peace,” says
David. Therapeutic, indeed.
Are you proud of your garden? Then share it with other Sunday Times
readers. Send up to six high-resolution shots of the garden at its best to
readersgardens@sunday-times.co.uk,
with a brief description of the garden and your contact details. Or send
prints to Readers’ Gardens, Home, The Sunday Times, 1 Pennington Street,
London E98 1ST.
We regret we cannot return photographs sent by post
The reader: David Hodgson Location: Coddington, Herefordshire
Conditions: Half-acre site on northeast-facing slope with clay soil
Description: Curved borders of herbaceous plants and shrubs, stream and
bog areas, vegetable garden
David’s top tips:
-In spring, cut lengths of stock-proof wire fencing, then join the ends
together to form a tube to put around young plants. Once they have grown,
the wire will be invisible
- Plant purple sprouting broccoli or sprouts in a deep trench and earth them
up as they grow. This will prevent wind damage and give a more upright
plant. Treating leeks in this way will give a longer blanched stem
- To extend the life of bamboo canes, soak the bottoms in cheap vegetable oil
overnight. This will prevent water entering their bases.
- When sowing vegetables, draw out the drill, water well, line with potting
compost, plant the seeds and cover lightly with more compost. Finally, cover
with soil: germination will be greatly increased
