Saving Grace

In the third in our series on summer gardens to visit, Elspeth Thompson basks in the shoestring splendour of Ochran Mill.


With eight children between them, and up to three foster children at a time, you wouldn't have thought Elaine and David Rolfe had much opportunity for gardening. And yet, in less than five years, they have not only created a beautiful garden from a couple of rough fields, they also open it to the public and have been runners-up in several nationwide competitions, including BBC Gardener's World Gardener of the Year. How do they do it, when many people with far fewer offspring find it hard to produce more than a muddy lawn strewn with plastic toys and tyre marks?
When the family moved to rural south Wales from the suburbs of Bristol, they weren't looking for a place to make a garden - "Just somewhere big enough for us all to live in," David laughs.
Ochran Mill, with its outbuildings, rusty Grade II-listed waterwheel, and grassy fields sloping up to woods behind, seemed ideal. While space for the children to play was a priority, Elaine could also see the potential for a garden, resuming a hobby that had lain dormant since she helped her mother as a child.
"Initially, we earmarked the lower field for the children, but then we worried about its proximity to the road and stream," she says.
With the children relegated to the upper field, Elaine set about marking out the beds with a ride-on mower - some were sweeping curves that cut a swathe through open grass, others smaller crescent moons that skirt the trees or follow the path of the stream. Less than five years on, this lower garden, entered through a stone gateway, is lush and leafy.
Grass paths weave between colourful borders, beneath arbours clad with clematis and roses, and around rustic summerhouses that have been home, over the years, to chickens, guinea pigs and chinchillas. The planting is confident, with bold grasses and dramatic dark and gold foliage among the rainbow-themed beds. These begin with the scarlet rose 'Dublin Bay', and run through orange oriental poppies and red-hot pokers, yellow grasses and day lilies, to the cooler blues and mauves of delphiniums and foxgloves and the silver-leafed teucriums and cardoons.
Wooden arches, woven wicker obelisks and a trio of slim silver birches frame views of a sunken seating area and well-placed urns and sculptures. Most of the wooden structures are the work of David, and on open days his collection of vintage pinball machines is popular with non-gardeners. "I don't dig or plant," he says. "I make things. That's my contribution. Plus, I feed the children so Elaine can get on with the rest of it."
Two years ago, having run out of space, Elaine turned her attention to the upper field, where she dug three ponds linked by little waterfalls that trickle down the hillside. She also created more sweeping beds, where wilder plants such as witch hazel and pink spires of foxgloves, are silhouetted against a backdrop of dark firs.
This spring, David built a curving clematis pergola to lead visitors into the new garden and a small circular summerhouse by the water. Realising they were now encroaching on the children's territory, the couple levelled some sloping ground to create raised circular lawns that are shored up with retaining walls made from fallen logs. "The kids love all the winding paths," David says. "Plus ,they still have the top lawn, treehouse and woods to run wild in."
With the rent to pay, the children to look after and an erratic income from fostering, web design and opening the garden, this inspiring place has been created on a shoestring budget. The plants are mostly bargains picked up here and there, grown on and divided, or donated by family, friends and visitors. The pond liner was bought on eBay and much of the timber came from local woods.
But the biggest savings have been achieved through sheer hard labour - to have this much landscaping done professionally would have cost thousands of pounds. "There are times when we can't do much, as some of the foster children are quite demanding," Elaine says. "When they arrive, they all behave like two-year-olds, following us around, and many aren't able to go to school."
But when time and weather permit, she and David are in the garden all hours, stopping only to make tea for visitors or to do the school run. Elaine is keen to convert an old barn into a tearoom and plant a nursery, while David wants to finish a blue Tardis gateway to the woods and make another log seat in the new grass circle. "The seats are for the visitors, really," he says. "We never sit in them - there's far too much to do."

Evening Opening

Don't forget our open evening this coming thursday (14th June 2007).

We've got a licenced bar so it should bequite fun! click on the poster for a large version.

Dave

First NGS Day of 2007

Today was our first NGS opening of the year and to my untrained eye the garden seemed pretty much up together. I spent the first part of this week building a new summerhouse structure next to the pond and I was quite pleased with the results. I also cleared a bit more of the woodland path and built two new seats in the woods. Elaine was pottering about doing weeding or what ever it is she does.

Not too many people this time - about 150, not much for us but quite a few nevertheless. As usual those that did come spent a long time here. Much more interest in the pinball machines this year, probably because they are mentioned in the yellow book now.

Spring Once Again

We've got the waterfall in the ponds working now, and moved in some of the fish from the waterwheel pond. Millions of tadpoles now inhabit the wildlife pond which give the children endless hours of interest. Further around the garden the hellebores and daffodils planted last year are in full bloom and very colourful. My bargain £5 camellias have flowered their socks off above the ponds.

The new raised circle is almost completed (notice M'spouse busy working), when it is I'll be able to transfer the turf from the waiting bed (to the right of the new steps) up into the circle and then get on with planting out grasses and late flowering herbaceous plants to finish off the autumn colouring.
I've also nearly completed digging over the bed above the pond, where the summerhouse is going to be sited, this was the first area we planted in the garden, but it got neglected and grass soon infested it, so its really pleasing to get it dug over.
I'm just waiting for some more of the bog garden plants to start shooting in the herbaceous gardens so I can transplant them into the boggy area around the pond, hopefully I won't have to buy anything it is already here.




The woodland walk is progressing well, this area is the newly cleared area, in last months photo it was still covered in dense trees. This next area has many uprooted trees, the conifers don't seem to send a tap root down and so are very shallow rooted and I think a combination of winds and high water has brought these down, so there is still loads of clearing to do. The newly exposed bank with some bluebells already established, I'm going to transplant some native foxgloves from another part of the woods into the banks, I also found a large colony of wood anemones which I'm very pleased about.




The herbaceous borders are still being tackled. They've been rather neglected for the last year or two, so need dividing, pruning and weeding well, so progress is slow. The hellebore beds are looking stunning and have increased in size enormously, there are lots of seedlings I need to collect and grow on in the woodland gardens at the back....

Under Water

Yesterday after heavy rains the herbaceous garden has flooded in parts, the worst since moving here nearly 5 years ago . Our usual fast flowing brook rose by about 1m during the day. We also have rivers flowing through the woodland gardens down the slope. During the night the river has risen even further resulting with it bursting its banks into the garden, most of the debris is sand and bark chippings from the seating area on the right, easily cleaned up. It came to within an inch of the gate by the bridge where I store all my seedlings and nursery plants, so I fell very luckly that they were untouched.



The woodland walk which we started last year, we are now attempting to get some more of it finished so the bluebells can be enjoyed in May. The picture on the left is of the clearance we have already completed about 200m into the woods. The leat has been unused for over 50 years, and now has numerous self seeded trees rooted in it, we hope to remove most of these and continue clearing to the sluice gate in the brook. We hope to place a bench in the area of the middle photo to stop and watch the brook, we will have several along the way. The picture on the right is the clearance we still have to do, the bluebells are erupting from the ground already so we're hoping to work on this before we cause too much damage to them. Allowing more light into the banks will hopefully allow more native plants to seed there too. We already have foxgloves, primroses and bluebells.



The early flowering daffodils are in full swing, with primroses, pulmonaria and hellebores creating more colour. Its hard to believe the circle area is less than a year old, its matured wonderfully. The pond area is finished apart from the electrics for the pump and the planting....we've got frogspawn already in the large wildlife area. The higher circle is still under construction, the grass covering it has come from the area to the right where the last bed will be located, this will hopefully be grasses and late flowering perennials. Then the garden will be complete - for now.

Even More Snow.

We've had even more snow today, totally un-forcast(whats new)! We had more than yesterday, about 10" in all. Traffic has been very slow moving on the main road.

It started snowing at 7.20am and continued until about 5pm. Of course the children were delighted, 2 days off to play in the snow.They've managed to make a roof for their igloo, so thats kept them busy for the best part of the day.

They Got it Right for a Change !

The snow fell as predicted overnight and by the morning was about 6" deep, the most we've seen in our 5 years here. The children have the day off school so are busy building an igloo in the field. The pond that has been frozen for the past 5 days is the only clear area.



The view from the field across the river. The chinchilla's seem to be absolutely fine in their avairy. We put some clear plastic on one side to protect them from the rain and they were bounding around their cage this morning when I went out to feed them.
We had over 14 long tailed tits on the feeders this morning. They are regular visitors to the garden and we had over 30 at one time last summer.
The conifer woods looked impressive with the snow too, although great lumps of snow were regularly falling off the branches on to us below.

Sunny days in the garden

I didn't think I had done much out on the raised circle, but judging by the photo I reckon I've worked quite hard..good job the weather is so nice at the momment, I've been working in a t-shirt for a couple of days. I've filled in too much of the circle with poor soil from other parts of the garden, so the back area that I'm still digging out will be going down to raise some of the beds back up to a respectable level. I've got some more bargain daffodils from the GC recently so will be planting them in some of the new beds.

Another view of the circle with the new ponds at the bottom. I tried the new pump out again because the top pond has leaked and I'd had a go at sorting out the problem but hadn't filled it back up again. Hopefully it will work this time, I have to wait 24hrs to see though. I've now got 5 levels in the garden, the top one by the lane is planted with daffodils, but I'm hoping to level it out a little bit and try and get the mower up there in the summer so we can use it.

This is the veg plot !! Well it will be next year, perhaps it might even get started this, as I'd really like to start growing our own. I'm going to move the nursery beds from the gravel area and add to them round here. I might move the polytunnel too as it doesn't make a nice entrance to the garden for those coming in over the stream, but I'll then have to get a new cover for it, so it all adds up in money and work, but perhaps I'll save a lot by growing our own veg ?? I'd obviously then have to do something with the entrance to the garden, so I think that can be on next winters list of things to do.

Early Spring, this Year ?

This stunning sunset really was this colour, we woke up one morning with the bedroom clouded in pink, it was quite spectacular, it went within 10 minutes to be replaced by a much paler version.
The temperature today reached 13degrees, rather warm for this time of year. I noticed 2 butterflies on the Daphne bholua 'Jacqueline Postill', it smelt wonderful too, luckily I was working in the bed just below and spent all afternoon with its lovely smell.
The herbaceous borders are looking a tad untidy now, hopefully I'll be able to spend some time in them in the coming weeks, I've 15 tons of horse manure to spread .



The grass has already started to green up, this didn't happen until March last year, so we're about 4 weeks ahead at the momment, but I'm sure we will be in for some snow before April, its usually about March around here.
The 3rd pond at last has been dug, carpeted, lined and filled. I've had to do a few adjustments on the waterfall as it seemed to be leaking, but several expanding foam cans later I hope to have fixed it. We tried the pump the other week, its a 10,000 gallon fully submersible sump pump and it works brilliantly, we could even hear the flow of the waterfall above the sound of the river in flood !
Progress has been slow with the new raised circle area, but we are now hopefull to get it finished. M'spouse has managed to cut & sink logs for nearly half of the exposed circle, I've filled most of it with soil from the pond, beds etc and now need to cut away the top half of the circle and level it all off, at the same time remove the turf from the top to lay on the bottom and then cut some more turf from the surrounding area's that are now being turned into beds.