Samlingstead

About Samlingstead

The garden is within two minutes of the north Devon coastline and Woolacombe beach. It has six distinct areas; the cottage garden at the front, the patio garden to one side, the swallows garden at the rear, the meadow garden, the orchard and the field (a 500m walk with newly planted hedgerow).
The cottage garden is a mixture of perennial plants such as peonies, roses, azeleas and many other cottage garden favourites the old eucalyptus tree holds a great tit nest box which sees regular nesting birds. From here we move to the patio garden festooned with bulbs in the spring and summer bedding in June/July a large lawn is protected by a wind break made of a conifer screen. Many birds nest in these trees and there are also a robin nest box and a blue tit nest box for these specific species.
The swallows garden takes its name from the annual influx of nesting and breeding swallows from May to August, a fig tree and large shrubs provide focal points with interest provided by the banking topography, a walled garden has bulbs in spring and bedding in summer and the fence line boundary is cordoned by dogwood shrubs planted as part of the hedgerow (it will be in only its third year of development).
The meadow garden has mature trees of conifer, willow and rowan with a small summer house bounded by flowering currant and climbing rose.
The orchard has fifteen fruit trees planted four years ago, eleven apples (north Devon varieties) and two plums and two pear trees.
Finally the field garden is used for agricultural purposes by our local neighbouring farmer but around its perimeter we have planted 2,500 hedgerow plants with species such as white-thorn, blackthorn, crab apple, field maple, hazel, dog-rose and others. This is to encourage birds and wildlife to have cover and build bio-diversity and create habitat.