garden open days in 2011
The garden is open for Special Tuesdays (see below) every Tuesday April through October 18
The garden will be open every Wednesday in July and August and September.
It is open for the National Gardens Scheme once a month from June through October, on the third Thursdays: June 16, July 21, August 18, September 15 and October 20.
On all these days it is open from 11 to 5 and homemade teas will be available. Entry £4
Garden visits can be arranged for groups of 6 or more on weekdays. Tours of the garden are available for groups of 12 or more.
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special tuesdays at special plants
Extra garden open days with a short practical talk on
what’s happening in the garden week by week
Talks at 11am, repeated again at 2:30pm
No need to book, included with garden entrance £4
(or £20 for a season ticket so you can come when you like. Twenty
minutes every Tuesday will give you a gardening course in a nutshell)
April 5 Spring Pruning
April 12 Sowing a Pictorial Meadow
April 19 Grow Your own Vegetables
April 26 Staking Your Perennials
May 3 Encouraging Wildlife
May 10 Carry On Flowering - The Unstoppables
May 17 Planting up Pots
May 24 The Chelsea Chop
May 31 Summer Flowers for Shade
June7 Umbels - the Neglected Stars of the Garden
June 14 Poppies
June 21Sow Biennials Now
June 28 Pelargoniums
July 5 Flowers for Cutting
July 12 Propagating Tender Plants
July 19 Hardy Geraniums
July 26 Architectural Plants (talk by Anna Benn, garden designer)
Aug 2 The Sensory Garden
Aug 9 Dealing with Weeds
Aug 16 Salvia Extravaganza
Aug 23 Late Summer Colour
Aug 30 no talk
Sept 6 Sow Next Years Best Annuals Now
Sept 13 Gravel Gardening
Sept 20 Grasses
Sept 27 Seed Collecting
Oct 4 Autumn Colour
Oct 11 The Greenhouse in Winter
Oct 18 Putting the Garden to Bed
about the garden
Twelve years ago, in 1996, we bought a derelict barn with the roof collapsing. My architect husband, Peter Clegg, converted it into a light and airy house with a wall of Streptocarpus instead of curtains.
We would not want any more between us and the fantastic view. We are on a steep hill at the top of an idyllic valley, but the house was surrounded by muddy fields
I was busy moving the nursery and had no time to make a garden. Peter had never made a garden before, but he designed and built a garden here on several levels with graceful flowing curves. I planted it with my favourite things. We have springs so there are ponds and a bog garden.
I had to have a gravel garden for my not quite hardy treasures -
Then a second one beause the first was so wonderful -
Eighty feet of Iceland poppies drives a slice of colour between grass and gravel in June. Later double nasturtiums do the same job -
Vessel by David Mayne seems to join the earth with the sky. In winter it exactly mimics the leaves of the beech hedge nearby
opening hours and directions for finding us
We are open every day of the week from the beginning of March to the end of October from 10am to 5pm at least -- we are often here from 9am to 6pm so it is worth checking if you want to come out of hours. In winter I am open whenever I am at home, which is most of the time, but you should always ring to check between November and February. A list of local bed and breakfasts is available.
SPECIAL PLANTS is about 100 miles due west of London, seven miles north of Bath and four miles south of Junction 18 on the M4. Greenways Lane turns west off of the A46 100 yards south of the A420 roundabout. We are not in Cold Ashton village. It is about a mile down a very narrow winding lane. Please drive with care. There is plenty of room to park and turn around when you arrive.
One of my favourite sections of the garden is the apricot border which I tear apart and remake every year.
In 1999 I did an exhibit at Chelsea, called 'What's Black and White and Red Only Occasionally?' and when I came back I planted a new black and white border (perhaps purple and silver would be more accurate).
Four years ago Peter planted the 'Empty Quarter' - a circle of beech trees around plain gravel,
Then a vegetable garden and an orchard with a Miscanthus hedge between lawn and field, grass dividing grass from grass.
Now we are working on a woodland walk with a Ghost Garden and Peter's Shapes in the Landscape, sculpted hedging
In ten years it has grown and bloomed beyond our wildest expectations.