A garden for all reasons

A modern take on the cottage-garden style provides Mike and Geraldine Carter with a plot that's productive and rich in colour

- By Sue Bradley

THERE'S no limit to Mike and Geraldine Carter's passion for gardening. Over the past 30 years they have transformed the space surrounding their stone-built Victorian house, creating a series of 'rooms' that combine to provide a modern take on the traditional cottage garden style.

They make the most of every available space, growing plants such as wisteria, actinidia and honeysuckle on walls or over arches and using techniques such as espalier and fan-training to extend the square feet at their disposal.

More recently their mission to bring beauty to their corner of the world, and create an environment that's friendly to wildlife, has led them to acquire a halfacre field close to their home.

Around the edge of this area they've planted 20 fruit trees that produce nectar-rich blossom in spring and apples for a source of winter food for birds. They have also planted various rugosa roses close to a small area of seating. These bushes are netted when humans aren't around to deter unwanted pruning by visiting deer.

Come early summer the entire field becomes a riot of colour with a carpet of wildflowers, including ox-eye daisies, cornflowers, corncockles and poppies.

Pleasing to look at

Mike and Geraldine worked with a groundsman to remove the topsoil and create the right conditions for sowing a mix of British natives, and still work hard to remove docks and other perennial weeds as they appear.