A garden on the Devon coast in tune with nature, ecology and its surroundings

The landscape and sweeping vistas at Little Dartmouth Farm are all encompassing. From its extraordinary position on the South Devon coast, the house commands a vast panorama of sea and sky, its garden merging seamlessly into land that slopes gently to the cliff edge. Owners Edward and Sally Benthall bought the 300-acre farm 14 years ago and have remodelled the house, outbuildings and landscape – working with 6a Architects and garden designer Dan Pearson.

With a background in environmental conservation, Sally was determined the project would be as sustainable as possible, so the master plan for the garden and outbuildings included rainwater harvesting, a wood-chip boiler and compost heaps. ‘Biodiversity was important,’ she says. ‘We wanted a broad species mix in the garden and wider landscape – not just for decorative purposes. We’ve planted miles of native hedging, hundreds of trees and a huge range of perennials in the walled garden, as well as fruit, vegetables and herbs with companion plantings.’

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Above all, she wanted a garden that would feel right in the landscape, on a scale appropriate for its setting: Dan Pearson seemed the ideal man for the job. ‘We talked for hours about what we wanted to achieve,’ says Sally. ‘Then, when Dan showed me the initial plan, it was like someone switching a light on. It incorporated all my ideas but made them bigger and better.’ One of Sally’s inspired suggestions was to lift the tin roof off a huge barn behind the house and turn it into a walled garden. Now this sheltered haven forms the heart of the garden, filled with plants carefully chosen for its unique microclimate.

‘We created generous plantings here to capitalise on its special conditions,’ says Dan. Elsewhere in the garden, plants had to be chosen for their resilience to the coastal weather, but here there was more chance to experiment: even in this protected environment, though, there is still the occasional unpredictable wind damage. ‘We started with a framework of clipped griselinias and bay, which are resistant to salty winds, adding Salix purpurea ‘Nancy Saunders’, magnolias and myrtle for winter structure,’ Dan says. Drifts of panicum grasses were planted to create movement in the wind, then an overlay of more ephemeral perennials with softer textures and moody colours, such as Rosa ‘Mutabilis’ and Dierama pulcherrimum.

Hard materials were kept to a minimum in the courtyard, with local stone used for paths and a grey limestone (to match the slate on the house) for the copings and a swimming pool, designed to resemble an agricultural trough. Sally was keen to be self-sufficient, so Dan created terraces for vegetables, herbs and fruit, with an orchard of local apple and plum varieties at the top. Some of the trees are on the boundary of the garden, with the coastal path behind. ‘We encourage scrumping,’ says Sally.

The design process started not with the inner sanctum but with the outer reaches of the garden, in a logical sequence that allowed the most economical and ecological approach. ‘We worked from the outside in, reconfiguring the approach to the house, following the 18th-century tradition of revealing the landscape before the property, manipulating the views with a series of roundels,’ Dan says. This area was stripped of topsoil and over-sown with wildflower seed, and the topsoil was used for the beds in the walled garden. Meanwhile, the concrete floor of the old barn was chipped and recycled for the entrance drive.

At the front of the house, overlooking the sea, the garden areas are minimal so as not to compete with the view. Curving beds wrap around the sides of a stepped terrace, with clipped Phillyrea angustifolia and Viburnum davidii forming gentle hummocks among a foam of Erigeron karvinskianus, white lavender and Phlomis italica. Below the terrace, a new ha-ha allows uninterrupted vistas to the sea, with areas of mown lawn and longer meadow grass echoing the contours of the wider landscape. An existing pond was reconfigured into an oval shape and lined with stone to give it a sharper, contemporary feel.

Past the pond and lawns, a sinuous wall separates pasture from garden, beautifully crafted from local stone and punctuated by traditional snickets (narrow gaps you can step through). Even beyond the wall, the garden extends in a naturalistic strand down towards the sea with a new catkin wood that has 20 or so different types of willow, all grown for coppice. ‘Local trees and wildflowers wrap generously all the way round the outside of the garden, encroaching into it in places,’ says Dan. ‘The ornamental areas of the garden here are relatively small, and we’ve tried to modulate the experience so you’re not going so dramatically from one thing to another. What I love is this blur between the hand of man and the landscape – the naturalistic meeting point of something ornamental and something wilder.’

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This is a garden that harnesses nature rather than fighting against it. Views and scenery are celebrated, and wind and weather embraced. The seasons are felt viscerally rather than merely observed, using the natural rhythm of the countryside to enhance the experience. ‘During the first part of the year until hay-cutting time, the landscape provides the focus,’ says Dan. ‘There are naturalistic bulbs in the meadows near the house – fritillaries, camassias, species tulips and alliums. Then by midsummer, the landscape has done its thing and it’s time for the garden to come into its own, with flowers, fruit and vegetables taking you through until autumn. It’s a rhythm that allows the walled garden to be the focal point in the height of summer.’

In tune with nature, ecology and its surroundings, the gardens at Little Dartmouth Farm epitomise the kind of long-term environmental vision that we should all aim for. This, surely, is the way forward for garden-making in the 21st century. Forget the New Perennial movement – let the New Natural gardens take centre stage.

Dan Pearson Studio: danpearsonstudio.com