‘I want to share our gardens – to be able to help charities is wonderful’ says Charente gardener

The prospect of opening your garden to the public for the first time can be daunting even if you feel enthusiastic about the project. Last year Sue Ware, who lives in a small village in Haute Vienne was all set to open twice – once in May and once in September. 

Then life intervened. She broke her ankle and the garden got frazzled in the summer heat when she was powerless to do anything to help. Plans were shelved. 

This year, Sue did open her garden gates in May but this time her neighbour Selina opened her garden too. 

“I had admired Selina’s garden,” Sue says. “I’d catch glimpses, see different things as I walked my dog Charlie. We got talking. That’s the thing about gardeners and gardeners,” Sue smiles. “I was a member of the Royal Horticultural Society, I used to go to Chelsea. You’d be looking at an exhibit and you would just talk to the person standing next to you. You had a connection, through the plants. 

“Selina and I are very different. Our gardens are very different. Hers is a much tidier garden. It’s far more formal and planned. She created her garden on the existing French garden. Mine was a bit of lawn and a big field with two cherry trees. When I started I just made a big curved bed. And then my husband Richard suggested I could extend it. I did, and then I did it again and again and it all sort of evolved.”

Selina also says, “We have very different skill sets. We complement each other. It really helps. When we planned the open day, we had the ability to have a wider range of facilities – I have a large covered barn for the teas. It’s a good job as the day we opened – May 11 – must have been the only wet day that month. It was unfortunate but we still had a good turn out. At Sue’s we sold plants – Sue had some silver-leaved begonias and Paul and Caroline at Jardins creatifs donated lots of plants.” 

Visitors were able to be taken around both gardens. Sue tells me that in the morning they had mostly British in the rain and in the afternoon it was mostly French when the weather began to clear. All were very interested to learn about the gardens’ development. 

Planting since 2005

Sue and her husband Richard bought the house over twenty years ago. They had already bought a property in the Charente and were actually looking at houses for one of their daughters. They fell for this small house and its field and bought it. Richard set to work renovating and by 2005 they had moved in permanently, sold the other house and began creating the garden. 

Sadly Richard died leaving Sue to carry on improving the garden alone. “I had done it before. We’d moved to a farmhouse on Dartmoor,” remembers Sue. “I made a garden there from nothing. I’m not an organised gardener. I make it up as I go along. I started with the herbaceous border and it just grew. 

“When Julie Evans, the Open Gardens/Jardins Ouverts local coordinator, came to see me, she told me my terrace was magical.” Sue smiles. “I have lots of pots on the terrace, everything spilling out, all over. I had to find things that would cope with the summer heat. I’ve got lots of salvias. And agapanthus – I saw them growing wild when I went to see my daughter in New Zealand, all along the edge of the road. They were magnificent. I have found excellent plants in discount supermarkets.” 

Sue is a woman after my own heart. We share our Aldi/Lidl bargain stories and commiserate on the devastation the summer’s heat is having on our gardens. 

“I had to go out and cover my acer with a sheet to stop it becoming completely crisp!” says Sue. “The garden is exposed and a bit windy. I have acid soil so I have planted camellias that came from Aldi – brilliant plants. They’ve done so well. I wanted magnolias – I have a Grandiflora but I wanted the Spring ones but they haven’t got going. I have gardenias and a catalpa.” 

Creating a floral 'roundabout'

Also planting trees was Selina Haylock. “When I first came in 2014, I started with my ‘Roundabout’. The house is a Maison de Maître and the garden is walled with a bed in the centre of the drive. I began with that bed and then set out to create structure. I planted an Alizia in the middle of it – the Silk Mimosa tree. It has roses around it. 

“I read a lot of RHS text books and I went to see Monty Don on his tour. It was inspiring and engaging. I’m never bored. And it keeps me fit. My mum in Cambridgeshire is still gardening and she’s 80. It’s a hobby for life. I grew up watching and learning. I’m a visual person. I think in swathes of colour, I like harmony and beauty. 

“I think my Mum and Sue are plantswomen," she continues. 

“I didn’t really start that way. I am always learning. I went to Beth Chatto’s garden. I needed to know how to grow drought tolerant plants that look beautiful. I am not here all the time yet. My garden has to cope when I am away. I sink pots into a holding bed in my ‘allotment’ so they don’t dry out. I grow vegetables, I have fruit trees including a lush Doyenne du Comice pear and peaches.”

Selina tells me she loves the garden in February when she feels anything is possible. She says it’s a good moment to catch up, to make changes, to see what you are really doing. 

“I have lovely, friable soil but it drains quickly. When I had big trees cut I had a lot of chippings so I mulched all over and now I realise I need to do that often. I do ‘chop and drop’ and I have made a dead hedge. I encourage diversity: I have loads of frogs so little trouble with slugs and snails.” 

A sensory experience

“I love scents in the garden. I have a Zephirine Drouhin rose: she smells glorious. And a Trachelospermum jasminoides which has the most heady perfume.” 

Selina is justifiably proud of her white wisteria on the pergola on her terrace – it’s as magnificent as anything you’d see in the Chelsea floral marquee. 

It is contrasted with Sue’s equally beautiful pink wisteria which scrambles into a tree. This is not competition but complementary styles. 

“When Sue asked me about opening and I spoke to Julie, I was excited. I always wanted to be part of the National Garden Scheme in England. I want to share our gardens, our passion and to be able to help the charities is wonderful. 

“It’s good to see the garden through other people’s eyes too. It makes you pause and see things afresh. It was great to have each other and Julie for mutual support. We are really looking forward to doing it again next year when we will build on what we have learned – and I hope that this time the sun will shine on us.”