Wychbury House

It only took but a few months to turn this area from a barren, desolate ground into a splendid garden. Today, the garden’s exceptionally accurate curves, lines and proportions will take your breath away. Nowhere is this more evident than the perfectly round lawn, which is the focal point of the garden.

The garden’s symmetrical layout starts at the porch and cuts through a circle formed by lime trees. The line continues through the round lawn and down a flight of the stairs. This area is paved with Indian sandstone and the adjoining walkways are tiled with sturdy Hagemeister paving bricks, perfect for long walks around the garden.
In keeping with French traditional garden design, cube-trimmed lime trees line the lawn in front of the main building. Under them, Japanese ‘Little Princess’ spirea frame a luscious rose garden. It is particularly eye-catching when blooming, strewn with numerous gentle inflorescences, and when trimmed it turns into a neat, green border about 30 cm high.
At the end of the central axis, there is an elegant wrought iron bench, with a hawthorn hedge rising behind it. The hedge functions as a screen - one of several planted throughout the garden. Together, they create visual barriers that divide the space into chamber zones. The plot’s boundaries feel like they extend beyond the actual grounds because of the way that the outer hedges make them almost invisible.
The garden has several unique features, including a homage to medieval times in the form of an herb garden with traditional, raised wicker beds. A carefully thought-out planting scheme provides the feeling of visual depth. This is a garden whose beauty changes with the seasons and your location, letting you enjoy its splendour again and again, each time experiencing and seeing something new. Some of the sights and odours to be enjoyed come in the form of umbrella and ball-shaped pruned spindle trees, groups of mountain pines and the ‘Pfitzeriana Aurea’ junipers scattered across the lawn. Elsewhere, there are umbrella-shaped shadberry. In early spring, this plant explodes into white clouds of flowers and in autumn its leaves are like a painter’s palette of shades of red. The garden is also home to many English roses from the prodigious David Austin, along with crocuses and white tulips.