Page 106 - homes & gardens

hristine and Charles Taylor’s acre of
garden in the far west of Cornwall, with its
sea views, intimate shady courtyards and
largely green palette, exudes more than
C a faint scent of Italy. When Christine’s
father bought Ednovean Farm, a small plot of land
with a semi-derelict 18th-century granite barn, in
Perranuthnoe near Marazion at auction in 1976, it
was as a site for his daughter’s livery business. Only
when Christine married Charles in 1991 did the couple
convert the barn into a home and go on to transform
the surrounding farmyard into a garden.
“From the beginning, I had wanted an Italianate
garden, perhaps because my father had spent time
in Italy during the war and had already installed
columns and urns when I was a child,” says Christine.
“I started by borrowing books from the library for
inspiration, then enlisted the help of garden designer
Ian Lowe as we needed to get the proportions of the
scheme just right.” Ian, now retired, encouraged the
couple to terrace the sloping farmyard and designed
a box parterre. As visitors walk in past a small herb
garden, a dense privet hedge masks the parterre, which
comes into view as the corner is turned. Christine
describes this as “squeeze and reveal”, the principle of
alternating enclosed, narrow spaces with open, light
ones in order to create drama and interest.
Although Christine uses pots of lavender and
scarlet-fowered pelargoniums for accent colour in
the summer months, foliage form is more important
to her than the ephemeral charm of fowers. Boldly
shaped plants such as Ficus carica ‘Brown Turkey’
(fg), Phoenix canariensis (Canary Island date palm),
Butia capitata jelly palm), Cordyline australis
(
(cabbage palm) and pampas grass are all staple
ingredients in the garden, with box and privet clipped

106 | H&G | september 2015