How, as a landscape designer, do you let go of the disciplines you have adhered to for many years to create your own, less formal domain? This was the challenge faced by Catherine FitzGerald when she moved to a former Victorian brewery in rural Wiltshire in 2018 with her husband, actor Dominic West and their four children. Catherine’s masterplan for her own garden was to respond to the spirit of the place.
The previous owners had lovingly cared for the house and garden for over 50 years, but Catherine was keen to create something atmospheric among the quirky spaces that lay between the ancient cottage on the lane and the adjoining brewery building. Set in the middle of a Cotswold village dotted with old mills, she wanted it to look as if it had always been there: whimsical Arts and Crafts topiary, roses and clematis on hazel structures, giant cardoons – nothing too ‘imposed’. ‘I wanted it to be relaxed – a place of experimentation and change, where random plant associations and self-seeding could happen without it mattering,’ she says.
In the orchard behind the house, yew beehives anchor wildflower plantings of ox-eye daisies, Geranium pratense and field scabious.
Andrew Montgomery
With its thin, free-draining and brashy soil, it is a far cry from Catherine’s family home at Glin Castle, in County Limerick on the west coast of Ireland, where she grew up and has now taken over the garden. There, the soil is heavy clay and acidic, and the Gulf Stream climate is mild and damp. ‘It has been quite a tussle to grow some of the plants I love, such as the roses, in what was essentially once a brewery yard. The ground was hard and compacted, and needed lots of manure and compost to build it up.’
Catherine, who worked for Arabella Lennox-Boyd before setting up on her own, has collaborated with the landscape architect Mark Lutyens for 20 years and recently joined forces more formally as Lutyens & FitzGerald Landscape Design. Inspiration has also come from designer, writer and neighbour Mary Keen, who has been making a new garden nearby: ‘Of course, the overall design is important to Mary but I love the way she values her “treasures” – her favourite plants – above all else. The plants are what matter. Any day of the year, even in early January, her courtyard pot collection will be sparkling with jewels to be admired close up and the succession continues through every month.’
Comments are closed.