WINTER ILLUMINATIONS

Bold plantings, touched by winter's wand, light up the landscape of Kathy and Simon Brown's magnificent gardens

-  JACKY HOBBS

Artistry, experience and an innate sense of spatial awareness have combined to create this exceptional series of gardens which shine so serenely in wintertime. Kathy and Simon Brown have seemingly harnessed the elements, working with the power of nature to light up their landscape.

The expansive, individual gardens now embellish almost five acres of their former greenfield site. ‘After 35 years we have become adept at capturing the magical effect of backlighting, making bold and deliberate plantings of key grasses, shrubs, plants and trees, specifically orientated to capitalise on the rising and setting sun,’ says Kathy.

The westward-facing white-stemmed Birch Walk, planted as whips in 1998, is lined with parallel cathedral-like columns of Betula utilis var. jacquemontii ‘Grayswood Ghost’. Wintry rays filter through tall, airy plumes of creamy-bleached-white pampas grass, Cortaderia selloana, maintaining the tone, scale and magnificence of the aisle, which culminates with an ellipse of taller, native birches, Betula utilis var. jacquemontii ‘Jermyns’.

The Winter Walk is the only dedicated winter-season garden, reminiscent of and inspired by the strong curves and bold winter planting at nearby Anglesey Abbey. ‘Beneath the pendulous upper storey burns a strong backbone of Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’, underplanted with golden winter aconites. Winter box, Sarcococca confusa, fills the air, its perfume ‘bottled’ beneath the airy canopy of this more enclosed secret garden.