BERKSHIRE'S gardening champions

We meet the region’s leading lights in the world of gardening, encouraging us all to reap the benefits of getting closer to nature

- Rosalind Sack

Sarah Pajwani

Inspiring amateur gardener

Many people would feel somewhat overwhelmed at the prospect of transforming a neglected two-acre field into a family garden, particularly with fairly limited experience. Yet Sarah Pajwani was buoyed by the challenge and has achieved just that at St Timothee in Pinkneys Green near Maidenhead.

“We thought it would be a great adventure,” recalls Sarah, who describes being greeted by dilapidated fences, rundown outbuildings and a greedy population of rabbits when they moved to the house in 2006. While they were fortunate to inherit a wonderful backdrop of mature trees around the edge of the garden – including silver birches, a red oak, poplars, and willows – inside there was next to nothing.

After creating a masterplan with the help of Acres Wild landscape design practice, whose free-flowing style appealed to Sarah, she set to work planting.

“I wanted to do the whole thing myself, but I felt that two acres was a big area and I wanted an expert to layout where the borders were going to be, and so on. Then we could work at it slowly ourselves, choosing the plants and doing it bit by bit,” she says.

It is now a beautiful, softly styled garden, filled mainly with hardy perennials and featuring a circular lawn surrounded by borders, a kidney-shaped wildlife pond sitting under one of the willows, a rose terrace, long wild grass areas and a pretty parterre.