GARDENGURU

Besidetheseaside

Neil Ross

Flotsam and jetsam is turned into garden art. Even the family gumboots are arranged with creative flair.

Jackie loves using grasses in her coastal garden, describing them as ‘‘weather-vanes showing us what the wind is up to’’.

‘‘The [garden’s]most memorablefeature wasoriginally theworst eyesore.’’

WHEN JACKIE Michelmore andher husband bought a derelictmussel works on the banks of

an estuary, their friends thought theymight have been drinking the seawaterand gone a bit mad.

Not only were all the buildings der-elict and dangerous, but most of thesea wall had been long-since washedaway by storms. That was 10 years ago.

One thousand truckloads of fill andsome serious engineering works havefinally satiated the hunger of the sea. Abeautiful New-England style house ofbleached timbers and glass sits serenelyabove the shoreline, as if shelteringfrom the onslaught of the occasionalgale, and keen garden designer Jackiehas transformed the surrounds into aseaside garden to die for, with a mix ofimaginative naturalistic plantings,quirky sculptures and a nod to the past.

Rather than obliterate the remainsof the mussel works, Jackie incorpor-ated them into the garden to give it asense of place and an injection of char-acter. So the shell of a cast-concrete

filter bed became walls for a sunkencourtyard garden, complete with swim-ming pool and shady barbecue loggiabuilt out of old sea-wall stone.

Similarly, the most memorable andquirky feature was originally the worsteyesore. A vast circular wash bed,cracked and leaking, has been part-filled with sand to make an enormoussunken beach volleyball court rimmedwith grasses and succulents.

Jackie is very conscious of the typeof plants and colours which fit in hereand admits that she is obsessive aboutwhat is and isn’t allowed. ‘‘I’ve chosena lot of dynamic plants,’’ she explains,‘‘grasses act like weather-vanes showingus what the wind is up to. I started withjust 20 and just kept splitting them andall those tiny sprigs have becomehummocks, creating a sand-dune effect.You could barely see them when theywent into the ground.’’

Yellows and limes are considered fartoo strident in a setting like this andthough orange is ‘‘a colour which singswhen seen against water’’, Jackie findsits intensity too distracting in this widelandscape and plumps instead forquieter colours like the glaucous foliagewhich seems so common in manycoastally adapted plants.

The looseness of species like fennel

and Verbena bonariensis link the gar-den with the natural landscape beyond,and with the smell of the sea never faraway, it’s also serendipitous that somany coastal lovers are aromatic too.Jackie values Russian sage (perovskia),figs and myrtle (Myrtus communis),which all add their own notes to thesalty air, especially on warm days.

Between the house and the water,an existing windbreak of scrub hasbeen carefully cloud-pruned into asimple but stylish echo of the skyscapebeyond. Again, it’s a feature that wasretained and transformed rather than

being thoughtlessly grubbed out —though pruning it can be precariouswhere the ground falls away;‘‘adrenaline gardening’’ is how Jackiedescribes it. Jackie is adept at the sort ofmass planting which suits an open sitelike this and though her style is obvi-ously sensitive and thoughtful, there’sroom for plenty of that most traditionalseaside ingredient — humour.

Many of the lighter elements herecome from objects washed up with thetide. ‘‘I don’t beachcomb for the flot-sam and jetsam — it tends to find me,’’Jackie laughs. ‘‘If something interesting

floats past, however, I have beenknown to launch the kayak and paddleout to salvage it.’’

By the slipway, sun-bleached buoysare collected and displayed on a deadtree, transforming it into a sort of glow-ing avant-garde sculpture, and Jackie’sartistic touch also manifests itself in theflamboyant way the family’s gumbootsare stacked outside the front door.

Here, where the land runs out,Jackie says it’s easy to feel connected tonature and the weather. Much of thistwo-acre site is devoted to nativewildflower plantings and shelterbelts —

even a small wildlife pond scraped outwhen the new sea defences were beingbuilt. A row of salt-blasted and long-dead trees has been retained as a fav-ourite perch used by visiting hawks,and Jackie keeps a logbook to notedown the avian ebb and flow.

‘‘The view out of the windowsacross the water is better than tele-vision,’’ she says, ‘‘from windsurfersand boats to the first swallow of springor a skein of geese marking the end ofsummer — there’s always something tosee.’’ And clearly with a grand gardenlike this, always something to do too.

Could dothis week

Lemon trees look great interracotta pots (above) and fruittrees planted on berms (below).

❚ Whitefly can be very active atthis time of year, especially ingreenhouses and around citrustrees — spray with a safeinsecticide such as Yates’ Target.❚ Citrus are greedy plants andshould be fed several times a year ifthe soil beneath isn’t too dry. Applya dedicated citrus fertiliser aroundthe drip-line (outer perimeter) of thebush and water in.❚ Use bird netting to protectripening fruit.❚ Many flowers look a bit jaded andlacklustre this month. An exceptionare the gauras, or butterfly flowers— easy perennials for warmerareas which perform all summerwithout let-up and never needdeadheading.❚ Cut the flower heads fromplants like false valerian(centranthus) and Lychniscoronaria, which can be anuisance if they seed too madlyabout the garden.

6 SUNDAY HOMESFEBRUARY 7, 2010 HERALD ON SUNDAY

HSH