Old Swan House Garden What's New 2019

The summerhouse catches the eye from the shade of the orchard

Gardens are constantly evolving, even if the gardener does nothing more than cut the grass, but most gardeners make small incremental changes - which they hope will be improvements - each year. It's surprising how long it takes for new ideas to take root. Gardening is a slow process, and one can sometimes wake up with an idea fully formed, while others take years to come to the surface. Winter is usually the time when new ideas germinate, which then take root in spring as the light reinvigorates our imaginations.

The most obvious change that has been made to the garden at Old Swan House in 2019 is the painting of the summerhouse. It took a long time and many trial pots of paint to settle on the colour and even now it will probably be finished off with varnish sometime next year.

The summerhouse in its new livery - May 2019. It may get a varnish next year. 

Another change is the result of the old dead cherry tree beside the summerhouse coming down in a storm.  It had been completely covered by honeysuckle (Halliana) and its windage became too great. It has been replaced with an iron obelisk which the honeysuckle (after being cut back to the ground) is now scrambling up and which will again provide much-needed shade as well as scent when sitting outside the summerhouse.

The two new large box balls next to the summerhouse and the 'Halliana' honeysuckle scrambling to the top of the new obelisk 

More box balls have been added to the already crowded field in the shape of two large ones placed in terracotta urns either side of the summerhouse. These 'anchor' it and already look as if they have always been there.

The two new urns and their box balls on 'Venky's Terrace'

'Venky's Terrace' in the orchard has also had two large urns and box balls added to make it more of a room. The urns are of the beautiful pressed brick which unfortunately will no longer be available. A  Trachelospermum has been planted on the apple tree and trained up it. The terrace is now much better shaded than last year. 

The black bamboo behind the cut down hebe.

Less successful has been the chopping down of the hebe next to the wildflower area. It had become very leggy and overgrown but by flopping in front of the wildflowers, it provided a necessary air of mystery, which is now lacking. To counteract this, a black bamboo has been planted, but it will be some time before that is large enough to provide a barrier.

Another black bamboo has been planted beside the summerhouse, that one day will throw its plumes over the roof 

The black bamboo next to the summerhouse (it's almost invisible) 

The granite horse - 'Khan' - has been given boxes of alchemilla to froth at this feet 

Finally, at the other end of the garden, more box balls have been added to the pond area - one in the middle and another on the plinth at the side. I had hoped to put a small statue on the plinth to match the horse's head, but haven't yet found a suitable one. 

The box walk and the armillary sphere are well settled in

The line-up of box by the pond is now complete

Needless to say, there are more plans afoot, but nothing further is likely to be done this year.  

The Therapeutic Power of Gardens - Oliver Sacks

As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process; as a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible. All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit. The importance of these physiological states on individual and community health is fundamental and wide-ranging. In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.


I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.


Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us. Biophilia, the love of nature and living things, is an essential part of the human condition. Hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage, and tend nature, is also deeply instilled in us. The role that nature plays in health and healing becomes even more critical for people working long days in windowless offices, for those living in city neighborhoods without access to green spaces, for children in city schools, or for those in institutional settings such as nursing homes. The effects of nature’s qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological. I have no doubt that they reflect deep changes in the brain’s physiology, and perhaps even its structure.


Oliver Sacks 'Why We Need Gardens,' found in Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales


See also my video for Macmillan 2018

Chelsea Flower Show 2019

The Facebook garden

For more photos, click here 

Favourite Gardens - Rotherfield Park

Rotherfield Park

Rotherfield Park was built from 1815 - 1821 and has been lived in by the Scott family since 1860. The current owners, James and Judy Scott and their gardeners have made much of tbe trees and avenues and the walled garden, using the landscape to the best effect and fashioning the old yew hedges into some of the most powerful shapes I have seen.

Yew buttress walk

One of the dramatic yew walks

The new amphitheatre designed by Kim Wilkie

Orchard and rose garden 

Beech walk with box urns

For more photos, click here