A bee-loud glade

Over the last year a magical garden full of bees has grown up around for our little cottage.

It’s been the most wonderful and rewarding voyage of learning and discovery. As complete garden novices, we’ve been in the safe and expert hands of master plantsman Marc O’Neill. He has a great eye for colour and texture, backed up by an encyclopedic knowledge of plants, soil, aspect, seasons and the broader environmental and ecological context.

Before we started on the project, we commissioned a beautiful woven hazel fence from an underwoodsman who grows and coppices the timber just down the road in nearby Kent. I love the way things have grown up and through the fence, spilling out onto the London pavement.

You can read more about the process of weaving the fence here.

The photos above were taken in the early summer, when the garden is full of flowers. The mix includes lots of native species like the ox eye daisies on the right, and on a sunny day it is humming with bees and other insects.

I love the feel of the garden in the golden hour, at the end of a long hot summer’s day. Perhaps most rewarding of all though, it how magical it feels mid-winter. On the right below, you see it in mid December at about 4 in the afternoon.

These below were taken just this morning. You can see how everything is about to burst open with colour.

Here below is the garden in a beautiful new book on Colour in the Garden by Lucy Bellamy with lovely photography by Jason Ingram. It’s just published this month, exactly a year after we started on the whole project. I still can’t believe what a transformation it has been - proper magic.