A quieter way of gardening

The Chain, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire The family home of Sarah Price Close artistic observation combined with a deep horticultural intelligence has made Sarah Price one of the finest garden designers today. Tilly Ware visits her at home, where she is experimenting to magical effect

- Tilly Ware

THE best gardening is experimental, as well as ephemeral. Designer Sarah Price’s garden, tucked into the shadow of Sugar Loaf mountain in Abergavenny, has these qualities in profusion. Ms Price moved to The Chain, a large Victorian house divided into flats by her grandparents, in 2013. Her walled garden is a sheltered, triangular slice leading east from the house, its high walls in the same greyish-pink stone. This part has been gardened productively, with vegetables, fruit and flowers, since the 1870s; the original greenhouse stretches down the north side, the deep staging crammed with cucumbers and grapevines clambering on the pink, lime-washed walls. At the furthest corner, a tunnel dips under the lane that borders the east wall, emerging into a wilder grassy orchard. The River Cibi rushes along the south perimeter and a fern-strewn path by the water’s edge circles back to the front lawns. The site covers two acres and Ms Price has plans for all of it, but the walled garden has so far seen the biggest transformation.