n°4 La Ferme des Roches

Martinvast

A quiet retreat just out of town

In 1998 Caroline St Clair fell for this place and started planting in the fields around the house.

The main, older garden in front of the house is reigned over by the superb Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’, which is kept company by others of its family (‘Eddie’s White Wonder’,  florida ‘Rubra’ , kousa chinensis, mas, nuttalli).  A Magnolia grandiflora holds its own throughout the summer months, and a M. ‘Star Wars’ and a M. salicifolia ‘Wada’s Memory’ compete for spring glory.
The back and sides of the house are planted with perennials, shrubs, old roses and annuals in an almost abandoned profusion of colours and shapes.  The drive down to the house is planted with 35, mainly indigenous, trees, at the feet of which abound forget me nots (Myosotis) followed by poached egg plants (Limnanthes douglasii) which literally carpet the 500m long drive in spring.

Collections

• Cornus (see above)
• Viburnum: V. bodnantense, V. burkwoodi, V. carlesii, V. plicatum, V.  rhytidophyllum,  V. tinus ‘Gwenllian’
  
• Magnolias: M. campbellii, M. grandiflora ‘Ferruginea’, M. kobus, M. liliiflora ‘Nigra’, M. stellata, M. ‘Yellow Fever’
• English roses, Old Roses, rambling roses...

Outstanding plants

• Cornus controversa ‘Variegata’, Cornus alternifolia, both interesting for their wedding cake forms
• Two eucryphias which flower in the summer: E. lucida ‘Pink Cloud’ et E. x nymansensis ‘Nymansay’
• Loquat (Eriobotrya japonica)
• Gleditsia ‘Sunburst’

Surface

• 5 000 m² of garden, 8 acres of paddocks