A WORCESTERSHIRE cottage garden, way out in the rolling hillside country of the Teme Valley, has been shortlisted in a competition to find the Nation’s Favourite Garden.
The amazing horticultural oasis of Pear Tree Cottage Garden at Wichenford, nine miles west of Worcester, has been created by Pam and Alistair Thompson and already holds a silver medal in Britain’s Best Gardeners’ Garden.
It has also been opening for charity for nine years, attracting gardeners from across the UK and even Europe.
On Sunday, August 29, it is again opening as part of the National Garden Scheme when hundreds of tea lights and candles will be lit, transforming it into a magical fairyland.
A glorious sunset at Pear Tree Cottage garden in Wichenford, setting for a fundraising event later this month
As well as being home to the runner-up in Channel 4’s Shed of the Year competition, the quirky three-quarter acre garden – which enjoys a sloping southwest aspect with views across Bulmers cider apple orchards to Martley Hillside, Abberley clock tower and beyond – has a penchant for recycling the unusual.
Pam explained: “Old metal oil tanks have become sculptures of foxes and fence panels have been welded using old horseshoes and cast iron wheels.
“The herb garden has been built almost exclusively from recycled materials and includes seating and a water feature.
“A fully restored original garden well with working pump surrounded by clipped box hedging and Victorian edging tiles sits in the middle of the main lawn.
“As well as colourful herbaceous borders, there is the odd prehistoric botanical surprise.
“One example is a Wollemi pine now on the critically endangered red list and once thought to be extinct. The garden also boasts its own plant theatre and dovecote, a yew sofa and a maple festooned with teapots used as birds’ nests.
“The herb garden has been built almost exclusively from recycled materials and includes seating and a water feature.
“As well as colourful herbaceous borders, there is the odd prehistoric botanical surprise. One example is a Wollemi pine now on the critically endangered red list and once thought to be extinct.
Pam and Alistair Thompson’s Pear Tree Cottage garden has been shortlisted in a national competition
“The garden also boasts its own plant theatre and dovecote, a yew sofa and a maple festooned with teapots used as birds’ nests.
“It is also home to four chickens who live in a medieval-style pole house and whose ‘Henclosure’ is actually a bamboo garden surrounded by a pleached beech hedge.
The Victorian-style greenhouse has a tiled floor with an uplit mini underfloor fernery.
“It’s all been a lot of hard work but we were absolutely amazed to discover we have been shortlisted as one of four in the Midlands in the English Garden Magazine’s ‘The Nation’s Favourite Garden’.
“As an isolated rural cottage garden competing against larger, classical and historic gardens we are facing some very stiff competition.”
To support Pear Tree Cottage Garden, click here theenglishgarden.co.uk/ngs/vote/?garden=ptreecottage.
Votes can be cast until the end of September.
The star prize is presented to the lucky winners of the garden treasure hunt Helen and Andrew Molyneux of Worcester
The ‘Gardens of Wichenford’ event, where homes in the village threw open their garden gates raised a terrific £6,400 for charity.
Sandra Kelley, one of the organisers, said: “We had a great day and were lucky with the weather.
“The money we raised will be donated to local groups such as the church and the Nora Parsons Day Centre.”
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