Style(s)

Cottage

Orchard

Meadow

Woodland

At Charleston I have followed an intuitive, ecologically-led approach to gardening, exploring the notion of the garden as a playground.

The garden itself, located at the foot of the South Downs, has a rich historical precedent, being an “artist’s garden”, and is therefore guided with both these principles in mind.

As Head Gardener there (since 2020) I have honed my practice as a working gardener and gained an appreciation for the craft that is entailed in the upkeep of this vibrant space.

The half-acre Walled Garden, with its medley of mature fruit trees, fragrant roses, & flowering perennials, is a haven guided by Vanessa Bell & Duncan Grant’s vision of ‘sweet disorder’.

A complex layering of matrix planting, encouraged through the use of bulbs, self-seeders and annuals, allows the garden to flourish throughout successive seasons. Through the use of diverse planting, I have learnt to make gentle edits to curate planting arrangements that are intrinsically artistic whilst still grounded in horticultural pragmatism.

©Marco Kesseler

Ecological sensitivity and nature connection is at the heart of how I garden. The four-acre landscape is managed on organic principles - and - I consistently encourage habitat creation and restoration.

The establishment of a wildflower meadow has been one of my proudest achievements at Charleston, transforming an underutilised area into a more coherent space. I continue to investigate what it means to gently guide all areas of the site through the lens of responsible renaturing.

Location

Sussex

Completed

Ongoing

Collaborators

Charleston

Trust

I have also had an opportunity to experiment with woodland management (including coppicing), dead-hedging, slow composting, hedge laying, and small-scale ‘rewilding’. It has been enlightening to observe the beneficial impact that these natural processes encourage within the wider biosphere.

Resilience is also fundamental. Through the use of drought-adaptable planting I have adapted the flora of the garden to the reality of dry growing seasons and introduced a range of chalk land species that thrive in free-draining conditions.