Loughbrow House, a garden for life

Garden owner Patsy Clark is 93, born the same year that the National Garden Scheme was founded she has been a fabulous supporter of the charity for over 37 years. Opening the garden, she says, gives her impetus to get it ship-shape. Join her now for a virtual visit to her Hexham garden that’s painted with a plantswoman’s palette and packed with character.

“All my plants are people,” she says. “I either love them or I don’t.”

A closer look…

Reached up a long curving drive on a hillside in the county town of Hexham, at Loughbrow you feel you are in deep countryside. There are far-reaching views through the mature woodland that shelters Loughbrow House; an enormous Rosa filipes ‘Kiftsgate’ climbs to the top of a tall Wellingtonia tree, Japanese wineberry arches over a door in a high wall that leads into the garden and the lawns span out, edged by sweeping, colour themed herbaceous borders.

To the left is a softly coloured border of yellow, grey and white, with roses and clematis reaching right up against the wall; tree peonies, onordornum thistles, slender spires of yellow foxgloves and Sisyrinchium striatum mingle with flat topped golden Yarrow, apricot Peruvian lilies, and Geranium ‘Kashmir white’. Two other large borders curve around the lawns, leading the eye to a billowing wildflower meadow and a distant bog garden, colourful with candelabra primulas. There’s also a Yew hedge that separates the flower garden from a productive vegetable garden.