F LOWERS
“With gardening, the more you learn, the more you realise there is to learn”
work – the bees are there as pollinators rather than honey providers, and the chickens tucked into a shady corner are grateful recipients of the slugs and snails found elsewhere in the beds; the eggs are a bonus. And those beds work hard, producing crop after crop of organic and seasonal blooms throughout the year. “The thing about growing flowers is that you can’t just shove them in and expect them to grow – they’re very demanding. But with gardening, the more you learn, the more you realise there is to learn,” Anna says. “When we first came into this space, nobody had worked the ground. We came in with a turf lifter and excavated all the beds, and then double- dug them – that’s traditional, that’s what you’re told to do – but then I went to this lecture by a man called Charles Dowding, talking about ‘no-dig’. He said, ‘Just lay down cardboard and put organic matter on top: it doesn’t even need to be that well rotted’. You put the cardboard on top of bindweed, on top of grass, anything, and then you want five, six inches of organic matter on top, and the idea is that by the time any roots get down to the cardboard, it’ll have been taken down by worms, which do the work for you. It’s total win-win: you’re not disturbing the soil’s microorganisms, it’s far quicker and it suppresses all the weeds – within six months you could be planting it. It’s funny, when you do things sustainably it tends to be better for the plants anyway…” Right now, Anna is in the process of building the business back up after baby Margot’s recent arrival, which understandably slowed the plantswoman’s
ranunculus, daisy plants etc. However, we’ve also started breaking it down into individual sessions so people can just attend one section. For instance, in early autumn, they’ll see dahlias growing and arranged, in winter they learn how to lift and store the tubers – we show how every plant is treated throughout the seasons.” Though Anna’s been designing gardens and working in horticulture since she was 21, having a fixed space to farm flowers has been a long-held dream. “Originally I was self-employed, and then I worked for two years for a local company: we’d do natural swimming pools, huge projects where we completely changed the nature of a garden – really amazing – but I stopped working for them when I had my children.” As Anna already lived in a cottage in Audley End, she knew the land agents and was able to move quickly when offered the opportunity of taking on this unique space. “We had our own cottage’s garden already, and didn’t know we’d get the walled garden: this was Lord Braybooke’s garden, but he died the summer before last. Then in February last year we were offered the adjoining space and what was their mower shed as well,” Anna says. “We’re still doing all the propagation in our cottage garden, but we’re really just getting to grips with what the space can do. We’ve hired out the studio a few times for hen parties or private classes; a children’s clothing designer is booked in to use the walled garden for a photoshoot… We’d love to do more of that: there are so many little vignettes and corners that would work…” Although everything found on the farm is as beautiful as claimed, it’s also there to
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C A M B S E D I T I O N . C O . U K
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