The garden in September 2010 back
Helen’s practice as an artist working in site-specific installation has informed her approach to the garden. The orientations of the front and back spaces is totally different in terms of light, sun and wind, some protection comes from the location set across the road away from the dunes, and both tend to have their own micro-climate. Over the dunes is a great expanse of sky, sea and sand flanked to the west by the Hastings headland and to the east by the omnipresent Dungeness power station. All these elements inform the format of the garden. The back garden faces north-east, with the rising sun in the morning lighting up the back of the house then moving round to the front and giving the bottom of the garden sun most of the day.
There are now 3 raised beds made from green oak sleepers and separate herb planters. Planting vegetable and herb seeds has to a great extent been a trial and error process, choosing what we like to eat as opposed to what we know would work. Overall it has been very successful - rainbow chard, courgettes, aubergine, chilli peppers, tomatoes, rocket, salad leaves, spinach and beetroot have all done well. The one problem so far has been purple sprouting broccoli, which has been badly damaged, we think by small white butterflies. But we have eaten everything and it has been very exciting supplying much of our own food.
Having herbs in their own container near the house was paramount, and this has also been really successful. Sage, basil, purple basil, 3 different mints used for cooking and tea making, curly and flat parsley, fennel, tarragon, thyme, marjoram, chives and possibly the best coriander we have tasted.
Spiritually the garden has helped us both through difficult stages of the renovation project when problems have seemed almost insurmountable, as a diversion and as a place to be away momentarily from the noise, dust and chaos invading the house. Near the back of the house is an area with a number of grasses and now a bamboo, in the middle of he garden is our harmony area, a circle with cherry, plum and apple trees, an olive tree, an acer and a bush lavender, and we have a wild flower patch near the vegetable beds which has been amazing.
The front garden has been much more influenced by the coastal location, all the grass has been replaced by pea shingle, and we have created an off road parking area with reclaimed railway sleepers which has used virtually all the hardcore from the site. This has been constructed to be as permeable as possible, with layers built up using recycled roadstone and shingle. The parking area is linked to the front door by a “boardwalk” giving level access to the house, and to the side of the house we have built a log store using mostly recycled timber and tiles reclaimed from the house roof when the solar thermal panels were installed.
Helen has designed and constructed an ongoing installation - "Refraction" - a structure of green oak and tensioned steel cable containing hundreds of wine bottles, Finally, erection of the oak frame for Helen’s studio is about to start – the groundworks were done months ago and the oak has been sitting in the builder’s yard which has been frustrating for her as she gave up her London studio in August. Prior to construction we decided that a fir tree directly behind the studio had to be felled, having already reached about 35 feet and likely to grow much bigger, and also a sycamore which was crowding out other trees in te hedge at the bottom of the garden has been taken down.
