Claire’s garden is a delightful mix of cottage and country - much loved and well-tended!

Behind a cream picket fence and a lychgate draped with climbing roses, Claire’s cottage garden is filled with flowers and fragrance.

Paths curve through beds crammed with a charming, colourful mix of roses, perennials and bulbs, including many old-fashioned cottage garden favourites. To the side, enclosed by hedges and backed by a bed of standard Iceberg roses, a small meadow garden with spring-flowering annuals grows beneath a stand of eight white-flowered crepe myrtle trees.

The front gives no clue to the scope of the beautifully laid out garden behind the house. A sweeping lawn is surrounded by generous garden beds planted with flowering shrubs, roses, iris, lavender, salvias and Claire’s collection of species or hardy geraniums.

Several large trees shade hellebores, hydrangeas, aquilegias, lilies, camellias, foxgloves, and other shade lovers. A glory vine grows up and over an ornate bespoke iron-work pergola and shelters an outdoor sitting area that looks out over the garden. Several arches provide support for roses; Claire loves perfumed plants, and most of the 150 roses in the garden have been selected for their fragrance.

At the far end of the garden, Claire’s charming white-painted ‘She-Shed’ makes a striking garden feature as well as being a practical and well-used space!

A sturdy chook house provides roomy accommodation for several spoilt hens who are allowed to range in the small adjoining netted orchard. Fruit trees including a huge plum are dotted throughout the garden, with several more in pots, and there are six raised beds planted with vegetables.

Opening with Christine's Cottage Garden across the road at Number 17.