Hitting pause in High Summer

and a hotel that's worth stopping for

Time feels short at the best of times, but May and June are a particular kind of vortex for anyone with a garden. Aside from the slightly futile attempts to keep my own garden going amid the chaos of a renovation and apocalypse, there’s other people’s gardens – to build, to design, to check in on – lovely gardens visit, school gardens to tend to and books about gardens to sell. It’s a chapter of the year I have learnt to anticipate and embrace knowing that it’s short-lived, and will soon dissolve into the waters of high summer. Because when solstice arrives the energy shifts, we’ve peaked. Like clockwork, the pace tilts slowly but perceptibly in the other direction towards a different season. Not the dark and gloomy, but the late summer haze. Here, slightly soporific, drunk on light and warmth, there’s more time to linger.

In subconscious recognition of this, I booked into Fowlescombe Farm, the day after solstice, for 24 hours of solo decompression. An impeccably designed farm-hotel that does that clever trick of making you feel more glam and well-dressed from the moment you walk in. Muted, calm, lots of textiles you want to stroke and books you want to spend an afternoon and a cocktail or two with. The rooms are impossibly generous with killer views down the valley, a heaving vase of hand-picked flowers from the farm, and deep proper sofas to enjoy both from. But as much as a 24 hours holed up with room service was tempting (and I would def be delighted to be tucked up in there for a winter weekend), it was high summer and there were gardens to explore.

Fowlescombe was (and still is) a working farm, and now 10-bed hotel tucked into the folds of a deep Devon valley and led by the land in all that they do. Imaginative delicious food grown and reared largely from the farm or very nearby (I had Salcombe smokies for breakfast and an incredible umami tea made from vegetable cuttings), wonderful regenerative and organically farmed productive gardens, a killer greenhouse choc full of pellies and head gardener Shelley’s penchant for aeoniums, and the kind of cosy laid back service that makes you feel like you’re staying with friends who are just really great at hosting. Dinner (four courses) and lunch are included in the room rate because “we want you to feel looked after” founder Caitlin told me – and that you most certainly do.Activities on the farm are outdoorsy, which is how I like them. A walk around the farm on one of its many trails took me through woods, past ancient ruins and fields with nothing but skylarks chattering overhead and low grumble of a heatwave about to break. But the real treat was an hour spent with Shelley the head gardener who talked me through the plans for the garden -and the astonishing work they have done already in the last two short years since building work finished.

Shelley is like so many great gardeners – full of knowledge and experience but still very keen to point out she is still learning, which may be true but the garden would suggest she’s got quite a lot sorted already. The vegetable gardens are set across a hill which used to be an orchard, some of which was heavily compacted when the building work was going on. As such it’s been a slow process of coaxing it back to life, and beginning the process of establishing a new garden for a new era. Gone are the formal immaculate rows of crops side by side, instead it’s companion planting inspired by the likes of Joshua Sparkes and Martin Crawford, with plenty of permaculture and food forestry principles woven in too. In one bed, Sichuan pepper provides a higher canopy and dappled shade for redcurrants to grow underneath with calendula at ground level. A Nepeta ‘lung’ runs through the garden to attract pollinators, and at the end of each row of crops a different flower shape is chosen to increase diversity. Perennial crops such as Jerusalem artichokes (which we had for supper) and Sea Kale are grown in abundance, and along the boundary a native hedge has been planted to attract the first early pollinators to pollinate the orchard – a trick Normandy farmers have been deploying for years. As you’d expect, the composting department is elaborate and enviable with experiments in bokashi taking place alongside seaweed and crushed scallop shells which are used to feed the soil.

The rest of the garden is more ornamental, but pleasingly restrained with fennel and (!) nettles left to romp among the daisies and the last of the foxgloves. It’s a garden that has been designed with not just humans in mind, and is a great example of how clean lines and considered design can be the corset that makes this kind of scheme feel intentional and understated. There was also a very lovely water feature designed by their landscaper Mark, and excellent outdoor furniture which I have spec’d in a few schemes but never seen en masse like this – it’s very nice.

All in all, it was exactly my kind of tonic – exceedingly treaty and lovely, but with much to learn and look at too. A place you feel good being at and want to spend more time in, and in a landscape that would be as enticing in October as it is now. I really must remember to do this more often.

Other things:

A great film about two boys I want my kids to be when they grow up – surf, sea and solitude

Books I have read / reread recently: James by Percival Everett – damning and brilliant satire, a new take on the tale of Huckleberry Finn told from Jim’s perspective. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier – so atmospheric, name another book with a character as good as Manderlay

A tree I really have fallen for after seeing looking 10/10 in a project we planted 18 months ago.

An article I wrote for House & Garden about gardening with your kids – something I never thought I’d love. Highlights include Lara from Skool Beanz

I’m speaking at The Design Museum’s Summer Garden Salon next month - it’s a free event and there’s lots else happening

My stay at Fowelscombe was hosted, with no obligation to write anything – as someone who does not do this kind of thing often, I wouldn’t unless I really liked it and felt inspired by what they do. I did.