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."