English cottage garden in Worcestershire

English cottage garden

Eastgrove English Cottage is from the 17th century, but its cottage garden is the delectable creation of Malcolm and Carol Skinner. A Lomceranitida
hedge forms the backbone of the garden, sweeping around white Exochordax macrantha. 'The Bride' Euphorbia potychroma 'Major'.

It all starts with a love story.Two 15 year olds, a boy and a girl, meet at a youth club in Birmingham, England. They are certain it is true love, but their families say they are too young. For six year , they patiently meet at weekends and go rambling together, enjoying the English countryside. Finally, at 21, they get engaged, and marry 12 months later. The year is 1959. Two children arrive, and in 1970 they move from an urban flat into an English  cottage in the Worcestershire countryside, to start their dream of running a nursery and garden together.

In June this year, aged 72, the couple will celebrate their golden wedding, still living in the English cottage they bought almost 40 years ago, still running a nursery, still gardening alongside each other every day, and still happy and comfortable with each other, pro of that true love does exist.

This is a very special cottage with a very special cottage garden and nursery. This is the 17th-century, black- and-white, half timbered Eastgrove Cottage,
one of the most picturesque and possibly the most photographed in England, which has appeared in countless calendars and magazines worldwide, with a five-acre plot for which the word 'quintessential'was surely invented.

Owners of the gorgeous English cottage garden Malcolm and Carol Skinner have worked in harmony together since 1970, making a bit of paradise to share with everyone far and wide. We love to welcome visitors; we can never get enough of people,' says Carol, whose boundless enthusiasm is matched only by her fondness to chat. I also adore growing plants from
seed and propagating them for the nursery - it is all we have ever wanted to do.'

When the Skinners first saw their English cottage, it was in a poor state, but they were too enchanted by a sign saying 'honey for sale' to notice, and it
was love at first sight again for both of them. The owners bequeathed their 50 hens and 12 boxes of bedding plants in with the deal - and so they started by selling bedding plants in single colors.

Eastgrove cottage garden has a wonderful boast. 'Everything we sell, we grow ourselves,' says Carol. 'I started out with tender plants, bedding and 100
pelargoniums, but now I do hardy perennials too, and I still have a fine collection of succulents.'

These days, it is not so much the rare and tender as the tried and tested old favourites that Carol grows. There is no mail order: Carol and Malcolm
like you to come and see the cottage garden and then buy the plants you like - and have a chat, of course. 'We dont do teas,' she says, tut Malcolm does
make a mean ice cream.' People have been finding their way down the long winding narrow lane to the hamlet of Sankyns Green, near Shrawley, in great
numbers, to discover for themselves this plants man's paradise. There is a certain element of pot luck as to what is for sale, but that just adds to the charm that prompts many visitors to return frequently. Eastgrove is an English garden of many parts, and requires a slow and studied walk through.

The cottage garden twists, it turns, this way and that. Surprises pop up, seating areas emerge, vistas open and close. A walk is even slower when doing it with Carol and Malcolm, for each plant is enthused over (its history is noted in Carolfe album, with every arrival recorded. Plants are truly part of the
family) and progress noted.

Everything here is carefully planned, for Carol admits :'Our ambition has been to make the house and the garden all of a piece. There is nothing straight in the house, so we determined that there really wouldn't be anything straight in the garden.' Typifying this is the substantial, serpentine hedge that coils through the garden from the back door; a lazy curve, following the shape of the hills beyond the English cottage garden. It is the backbone of the cottage garden, and it really echoes the line of the house.

It was here when we moved in and although we cut it frequently these days. In parts, it is collapsing like an old lady with a sagging corset, but we love our Lonicera nittida hedge and wouldn't be without it.' All the areas of the cottage garden have nicknames.

The Great Wall of China' is a surprisingly low, long rockery area made from local sandstone, distinguished by an Italian pencil cypress and a variegated neat Rex aquilfolliim 'Hascombensis', which act as foils for a mass of spring col our, with the short pink Tulipa 'Lilac Wonder' and other lovers of free-draining soil. Beside sits the luscious yellow Paeonia mlokosewltschii - Molly the Witch - which grows behind the 'Great Wall'.

Tulips cottage garden

At the side of the house is what Carol describes as her Lloydian hot spot - a strong colored tribute to Christopher Lloyd, with bright tulips, such as West Point' and 'Red Shine'. Even the shrubs gleam, such as the delightful chubby
pyramid of Loniceranitida 'Bagesen's GoId', which used to be clipped every two weeks, but these days is allowed to expand its waistline into a comfortable middle-aged spread.

The secret rose garden sits in one of the curves of the lonicera hedge. In spring, astrantias, aquilegias and poppies burst out, apparently at random but actually under strict supervision. One of the brightest of the signature plants is the lime green Euphorbia polychroma 'Major', which fills the garden with sunshine.

Malcolm professes to be the heavy duty operator in the English cottage garden. He mows the lawn, trims the hedges and does the carrying, but closer
questioningreveals his emerging passion. Having occasionally found the odd seed from a tree and casually potted it up, only to find with delight it emerged and grew apace, he is now something of a tree enthusiast. Hence the two-acre arboretum (perhaps too grand a word to use just yet) in a meadow beside the house.

Once cows grazed here, but in the four years since they left, Malcolm has become the proud owner of a glade, a labyrinth and an interesting collection of trees. He introduces each tree personally and remembers each moment of birth, whether an Italian cypress seed gathered from a Tuscan churchyard; a cercisfroma seedpod found at La Ninfa, Italy; or the seed of an Indian black
chestnut acquired from Hyde Park Road in London. He is as proud as punch of his offsping.

There is Quercus dentata 'Carl Ferris Miller', the untidy oak; a grove of leaming white Betulautilis var.jacquemontii 'Doorenbos'; a black Worcester pear that traces its ancestry to Elizabath I; and three damson trees known as Shropshire prunes, from the 17th century, considered the best-tasting
damson ever. It certainly looks like an orchard is emerging alongside the arboretum.

Now Carol and Malcolm are in their seventies, there is some talk of, if not slowing down, at least making the cottage garden easier to maintain. Malcolms trees will look after themselves, and Carol has started her retirement project - learning to draw and paint Her art teacher was a fellow student of David Hockney. 

So, watch this space: Eastgrove cottage may soon have more than plants to its name.

Eastgrove Cottage, Sarikyns Green, near Shrawley, LittleWitley,Wores WR66LQ Open 23 Apr-18Jul; every Thurs-Sat(except 18-20 Jun) plus BH Suns and Mons 3,4,24 and 25 May; also every Thurs and Fri, 10 Sept-90d;2-5-pm. Open for The NGS Sun 14Jun.
Tel: +44 (0) 1299 896389 (2009.04)

WORDS JANINE WOOKEY

What a beautiful English cottage garden, full of bulbs, roses and other English garden plants!