The Oast

First of all, it’s the colour!   The minute we walked through the gate, great pots filled and overflowing with amazing combinations of colour!  Amongst the borders round the outdoor dining table (at which we drank and ate copious amounts of tea and cake!) there were pots of the greatest exoticism.  Bright orange marigolds with dark purple/red petunias, and the leaves of a canna lily shining orange, red and stripey green in the sun, and beside the front door pots of the most delicious muted, very pale green Nicotiana mixed with a dusty pink Diascia.  So subtle and beautiful it took our breath away.

The garden is less than an acre but the way in which it has been landscaped makes it seem much larger.  The lawn runs at a gentle slope towards the southern hills.  A pond and large borders at the top of the space and a supremely elegant long border carry our eye down the length of the lawn to a woodland walk and a hard-won wildflower meadow (sheep and the occasional horse had to be encouraged to newer grazing!).

Together with (what ought to be late) summer’s shining flowers, there are roses.  These most particularly planted around a patio overlooking the meadow where one might drink a gin and tonic at the end of another gardening day, and because Mike loves roses.

Over the merest sixteen years a courageous use of colour combined with the shade of the woodland walk and the roses have created an atmosphere of joy and a very English calm.

Mike and Tessa Crowe were so generous and kind, Mike collecting us from the coach, and Tessa walking round the garden discussing every aspect of its development.  The woodland walk, she told us, was “no dig”, with “recycled cardboard sheets laid under a six inch layer of their own meadow compost from two haystacks combined with loam and mulched with composted bark”!  This is the level of their hard work, their imagination and their love of the place.

There is an orchard where Tessa encouraged us to pick an apple, and a greenhouse, the “powerhouse of the place”, where new plants are propagated and seeds sown (Tessa never buys an annual).  She will not, she said, “go Mediterranean”, but already one large border has not been watered since the plants were introduced and the woodland walk leads into a Salix glade planted “to provide a cool and refreshing respite from the summer heat and vibrant colour in the winter”.   There is genius here and we learnt a great deal.

Over the merest sixteen years, a courageous use of colour combined with the shade of the woodland walk and the roses have created an atmosphere of joy and a very English calm.

This year, The Oast has been reviewed in the RHS magazine, “The Garden”, Gardens Illustrated and the current edition of Country Living, and we can follow Tessa on Instagram @tessamcrowe.

Report by Sue Marsh