Wealden Times | WT243 | August 2022 | Taste Of The South East Supplement inside

with wonderful shiny rounded
leaves and everything in between.
Charlotte makes lots of cuttings
and swaps cuttings with friends,
knowing the provenance of each
plant. Indeed, almost all of the
box came as cuttings from her
previous garden. She has rescued
plants that were about to end
up in a skip down in the village.
Can you believe that anyone
would throw out a tree peony?
And a table outside Charlotte’s
studio, built as a result of a
commission for a mural she took
on down in the West Country,
is a perfect place to sit and take
in her collection of scented
pelargoniums (reminiscent of
her mother’s collection) and
some great pots of succulents.
One of my favourite areas –
one of many – is what Charlotte
called ‘child’s garden’ with a
Victorian fern seat at one end
and then a central border with
a planting of tall verbascums
combined with the soaring yellow
umbellifer flowers of the parsnip,
Ammi and another favourite
of mine this time, Eryngium
giganteum, or Miss Willmott’s
Ghost, which draws in all manner
of pollinating insects. Also there
is that little treasure, Dianthus
carthusianorum, the Carthusian
Pink, with its slender stems
and sparkling magenta flowers.
There was also an old sink
filled with pebbles, shells and a
collection of sempervivums.
As the years went on the
garden continued to develop
organically and Charlotte and
Donald acquired more land
and dug a pond. This was also
a wedding present and integral
to the garden’s layout as it came
early on and they had a difficult
task deciding where to put it.
It is now surrounded by an
area of wild flowers and lots of
interesting trees. There is a sense
of a borrowed landscape from
the great trees that edge the
garden such as Scots pines, Pinus
radiata and Malus hupehensis,
some grown from seedlings from
the old ones in the Grange.
Amongst all the other
interesting trees and shrubs is a
large specimen of Heptacodium
miconioides AGM, also known
as the Seven-sons flower of
Zhejiang, which has the most
extraordinary and distinctive
wavy leaves which are large and
curl downwards. The tree flowers
in late summer into autumn
and has seven scented flowers
growing from the panicles at the
end of its branches. Native to
China, luckily it was reintroduced
into the horticultural world
before it became extinct in
the wild in the 1980s.
Shady areas are full of lovely
native ferns, saxifrages, silver
leaved pulmonarias and more
plants than I could take in all in
one go. I notice Rosa x odorata
‘Mutabilis’, grows in several
parts of the garden. This year we
have released ours from its life
in a large pot and it has been
rewarding us with a constant
display of its extraordinary single
flowers which change from
orangey yellow to copper pink
with a final display of red.
Charlotte and Donald open
their garden to the public through
the National Gardens Scheme
(NGS) and charities such as St.
Michael’s Hospice. I recommend
a visit so that you can see this
enchanting topiary garden and
its treasures for yourselves.
You can also enjoy artworks by
Charlotte Molesworth, Peter M
Clarke and Colin Griffith, and
explore the garden at Three Artists
in a Topiary Garden 2022. It will
run on Saturday 20th and Sunday
21st, Saturday 27th, Sunday
28th August and Bank Holiday
Monday 29th August from 11am
til 5pm. Entry will be free, with a
jar for donations to local charities.
Dogs on leads are welcome.
Sue Whigham can be
contacted on 07810 457948
for gardening advice and help
in the sourcing and supply of
interesting garden plants.
Sempervivums
Yellows and whites make
for a pleasing colour
combination in a border
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