Docwra's Manor Garden

The guiding principle was to work from the house outwards, taking new places into cultivation as the collection of plants grew. These were secured with magpie acquisitiveness from friends and family, from nursery gardens, large and small, and from expeditions abroad. Species were preferred to hybrids, and the old fashioned to modern novelties. The result has something of the 'cottage garden' look, where many different varieties are jumbled together without segregation by size or form. Roses are planted among herbaceous plants or spray out from the top of fruit trees, and bulbs pop up between cobbles and through gravel. Many seedlings are allowed to remain where they sow themselves. Inside the strong framework of walls, hedges and paving stones, the prevailing impression is of ebullient growth, even of wilderness, to the point of raising fears for the survival of the more delicate species. The garden designer, though not entirely ousted, has had to yield pride of place to the plantsman.