Tom Stuart Smith transforms a walled garden into an intimate, plant-filled retreat
Culham Court occupies a charmed position overlooking the River Thames a few miles north-east of Henley. Set in some 3,500 acres of land that gently descends to the river, the 18th-century house sits on a bluff surrounded by beautiful park and grazing land, with far-reaching views across the meandering river. When, in 2010, the garden designer Tom Stuart-Smith was invited by its owners, Urs and Francesca Schwarzenbach, to remodel the terraces round the house, he felt that minimal intervention was needed to compete with the view. In contrast, when he was commissioned at a later stage to redesign the walled garden, which is set a few hundred metres away from the house, he felt that this enclosed space could be much more complex in design as a garden in its own right.
‘They wanted the walled garden to be a private retreat,’ says Tom. ‘Culham is quite an exposed site, open to the river and public footpaths, so the owners wanted it to act as an antidote to that – as a more involved, intimate private space.’ The 18th-century walled garden would once have been the kitchen garden to the main house, but it has a more recent history, too, having been designed for the previous owners of the house by Dan Pearson (and featured in the September 2010 issue of House & Garden). It may seem sacrilegious to do away with a garden by another leading British designer but, as Tom explains, Dan had designed the walled garden as an open space with a grassy landform as a focal point. Urs and Francesca wanted the exact opposite: a garden full of plants. So the landform was flattened and Tom’s new concept started to take shape, totally changing the atmosphere within the walls.
Tom designed the garden as a triptych, dividing the D-shaped space into three distinct areas, with spring and summer gardens on each side of the walled space, and an elegant rectangular canal and a contemporary architectural pavilion in the centre. ‘The idea was to have contrasting parts of the garden on either side of a calm, quiet and natural space,’ says Tom. Emerging through a heavy oak door into the spring garden, the visitor is engulfed by a sensuous mass of plants in fresh green, blue and white, through which they can wander on snaking grass paths. Layered drifts of Siberian irises (blue ‘Silver Edge’ and violet ‘Tycoon’), steely blue Amsonia tabernaemontana var. salicifolia, Geranium ‘Brookside’ and cloudlike Gillenia trifoliata contrast with hummocks of limegreen Euphorbia cornigera and rivers of Hakonechloa macra. Small multi-stemmed trees provide height definition for each border; some have bubbling fountains underneath. ‘The perennials are all quite evenly sized and chosen for their stability, so the plants won’t spread aggressively,’ explains Tom. Using large drifts of plants with lots of repetition throughout the space, he has created a scheme that is calm, balanced and harmonious on the eye.
The central section features a long, narrow canal lined with black stone. The planting in this area is minimal, with oversized cushions of box and the multi-stemmed crab apple Malus ‘Evereste’ rising up from symmetrical blocks of Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’. This simple composition leads the eye to the striking bronze pavilion designed by the architect Jamie Fobert. Described by Tom as ‘part sculpture, part building’, the pavilion has faceted walls that frame views from within and provide contrasting perspectives on the garden.
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The summer garden is different in feel, with Mediterranean- inspired gravel planting that matures by midsummer into a mass of soft, hazy colour. The prominent daubs of colour in the spring garden give way to a lighter, more impressionistic scene on this side of the garden, with airy perennials such as Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Apollo’, Dianthus carthusianorum and Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Blue Spire’ interspersed with Stipa brachytricha and Stipa lessingiana, with an upper layer of Cotinus coggygria and Cercidiphyllum japonicum among other small trees. Stronger colour comes from sunny yellow Asphodeline liburnica, Echinacea purpurea ‘Magnus’ and Allium sphaerocephalon. Once again, winding paths – this time of gravel – lead visitors right through the plants, so they can experience them at close quarters in a truly sensory way.
Over the past decade, the garden has continued to evolve, overseen since 2015 by head gardener Simon Rice, whose job it is to observe the ebb and flow of the plants through the seasons and to control, encourage and embrace this living, dynamic composition.
Tom Stuart-Smith: tomstuartsmith.co.uk
Marianne Majerus1/9A view of the bronze pavilion through airy planting in the summer garden, which includes yellow Asphodeline liburnica, violet Perovskia atriplicifolia ‘Blue Spire’ and different varieties of stipa grasses.
Marianne Majerus2/9A Belgian brick path follows the perimeter, with shrubs on the left and herbaceous plants on the right, including pink Thalictrum aquilegifolium and blue Geranium ‘Rozanne’.
Marianne Majerus3/9Box balls and Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’ flank the long canal that divides the garden.
Marianne Majerus4/9Multi-stemmed Cornus kousa are underplanted with herbaceous perennials.
Marianne Majerus5/9Steely blue Amsonia tabernaemontana var. salicifolia and violetIris sibirica ‘Tycoon’ are set off by lime-green Euphorbia cornigera.
Marianne Majerus6/9The bronze pavilion has cleverly faceted walls that frame views and guide
the eye.
Marianne Majerus7/9In midsummer, claret Allium sphaerocephalon weaves in and out of Stipa lessingiana, with delicate wands of Veronicastrum virginicum ‘Apollo’ behind.
Marianne Majerus8/9Dianthus carthusianorum thrives in the gravel next to box balls, with the fluffy panicles of Cotinus coggygria above.
Marianne Majerus9/9Clematis ‘Frances Rivis’ and sulphur-flowered Bupleurum fruticosumframe a doorway into the summer part of the walled garden.
