Tanglefoot

About Tanglefoot

When we moved into our house in 1976, the garden consisted of nothing except a hedgerow and a thin layer of topsoil over the native chalk. We knew we had a large task ahead of us. Rather than starting with a definitive design, we chose to add, modify and experiment with features over the years. An example of this is our rose arch and small wildlife pond, which we introduced in 1990 after a trip to Monet’s gardens in Giverny. More recently, we experimented with turning an area of lawn into a small wildflower meadow, with the aim of attracting and sustaining local wildlife. In Spring, the dry and shady borders are at their best, while from summer to autumn our herbaceous bed takes pride of place.

Visitors always comment on our kitchen garden, which supplies plentiful vegetables all year round, as well as our fruit trees, some of which (including apricot, fig & peaches) have been trained along the Victorian boundary wall, and produce fresh fruit for many months. The conservatory and adjoining terrace, where we overwinter a variety of frost-tender plants, overlook our traditional herb wheel, much favoured by bees and butterflies during the warmer months; in fact, visitors often comment on the large number of bees in the garden.

In autumn 2013 we bought an adjacent 2 acre field which we are converting into a wildlife haven comprising spring wildflower meadow, summer wildflower meadow, and (mostly native) trees and shrubs. This is a long term project which has already delighted our summer visitors; we hope they will enjoy seeing it develop over the years.

The meadow contains plenty of ox-eye daisy, bedstraw, scabious, vetch, knapweed, bees, butterflies and much more; it has delighted many visitors. Visitors can picnic in the field, but there are no facilities. Plants from the garden for sale.