Kathy Brown's Garden visit

Valerie Brown organised yet another wonderful garden visit; this time to Kathy Brown's garden in Stevington http://kathybrownsgarden.homestead.com/ about an hour and half away from our base in Finchley, North London. We left London just after 10 am and journeyed north into Bedfordshire. Our first stop at about 11:30 was a marvelous garden centre Frost's whose proximity to Kathy Brown's and the fact that it has an excellent restaurant made it an ideal place to have a quick bite to eat and make any purchases we wanted before moving on to the main attraction. The first two pictures in the slide show are taken in Frost's on the restaurant terrace and the last two were taken in the village of Stevington.




Kathy Brown greeted us at the bottom of her road as it is too narrow for coaches to pass. She directed us along the short distance to her house past the historical church which can be accessed through her garden. We assembled on the main lawn at the very grand "back entrance" to the manor house so that KB could give us a short talk about the house's history and the story behind the layout and design of the garden, before taking us on the guided tour.

Her concept has been inspired by paintings and painters and many of the "rooms" have been named after great artists amongst whom are Kandinsky, Monet and Rothko. She talked about her books and her recipes and explained about her large collection of clematis (which is NOT a National collection).

In the slide show; I have placed pictures of the main herbaceous border, the Kandinsky room, the vistas from the house showing the duck fountain made from reclaimed materials including a stone spiral staircase and millstone. Other features are her quirky planting containers, for which she is famous, the wild meadow complete with mad hatter's tea party and other objects and constructions you stumble upon on the journey that is Kathy Brown's garden.

Sadly the box has been affected by box blight but this is only a minor blemish on the overall effect. The herbaceous border is very well stocked with plants but was probably not at its best. The Kandinsky garden, a disused fish pond, was extremely colourful. But colour was not restricted to this area; the house was covered with clematis of many types. They have made dry borders with grasses and Verbena bonariensis (a personal favorite) bee and butterfly heaven. This is a garden filled with interest and with something to suit everyone.

After the tour we were treated to one of KB's famous teas on the lawn with lavender and lemon drizzle, honey fudge and lavender and apricot cakes.  We were then left to roam the garden freely to see the things we had not seen or take more pictures and notes. 

Even though we have had precious little rainfall this summer and everything is parched the gardens were still magnificent due, no doubt, to judicious watering by Kathy Brown and her husband who maintain the large garden without help from additional gardeners. She and her husband have created a magical garden with many different moods, ancient and modern in this marvelous location in what appears to be a perfect little village. It is definitely worth a visit.

We were blessed with wonderful weather, neither too hot nor too cold - a perfect English summer day.