A visit to Serge Hill and The Barn Garden

The Garden Media Guild very kindly recently organised a trip to visit two gardens across the road from each other: Serge Hill is the garden of Kate Stuart Smith and The Barn Garden is the garden of her brother and his wife Tom and Sue Stuart Smith. This was an opportunity not to be missed.

Serge Hill is a beautiful Regency villa set in a lawned and wooded landscape. 

The walled garden is full of colour

and height

and glorious self-sown moments of happiness.

There is scent and bees everywhere.

There are places to sit,

and one of the best long mixed borders running down the outside of the Walled Garden I have ever seen.

and I do mean ever seen!  It was a garden I had to do several circuits around, as usual I have not shown you all of what there is to see in case you get the chance to visit yourself.  

It was inspirational, I know that word gets used a lot, but I found very much so.  I left with a plant list and the wish to get more colour and more height and more blousyness into my garden, in short: just more.  

We had some tea and cake and then went over the road to The Barn Garden.  

There are more formal moments in the Barn Garden, this courtyard involves components of a 2005 Chelsea Show Garden Tom designed.  

This is the prairie meadow, a truly stunning piece of planting.  I have visited this garden previously way back in 2013 when I attend the first Garden Museum Literary Festival, and it was a joy to revisit.  

I remembered a lot of the garden from that previous visit, but did not get to see all of it.  It was good to have the ability to explore it in its entirety.  It is delightful combination and formal and non-formal areas.

The soft planting works so well with the structural elements (anyone would think Tom was an award winning designer......)

It was a joy to wander through the different areas that have very different styles and that evoke different feelings. 

and in terms of borrowed landscape, that fuzz of pink in the distance is a field of poppies, it was a moment to stop, breathe and admire.

We had such a lovely afternoon and I am very grateful to the Stuart Smith family and the Garden Media Guild for arranging it.  Both gardens open to raise money charity and more information can be found here.

Stay safe all and be kind.

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