Moors Meadow, The Garden Past and Present
On 25th March ODGC welcomed Ros Bissell to talk about her seven acre organic garden. In 1955 her parents bought a sloping seven acre site with a derelict house for £400. Ros was born at Moors Meadow and has seven older brothers..
[Ros holding her book Gardening by the Seat of Your Pants]
The property was run as a smallholding and market garden and worked by hand, stocked with a small Jersey herd, hens and two pigs. There was no electricity until Ros was twelve. Her mother made delicious ice-cream by putting the container on the shed roof to freeze!
After their brood left home stock fences were gradually moved back and the animals eventually dispensed with. Her parents, keen plantspeople, concentrated on making a garden, mostly from seed. The hillside site was initially open to the elements and over the years many trees had been planted creating a microclimate. A collection of snowdrops was started from two divisions given to her parents and now boasts sixty species – though Ros says that she is not a galanthophile! Thousands of daffodils surround the property in Spring.
In 1999 following her father’s death Ros moved back home and started a nursery with her mother, opening to the public in 2002. The site is divided between a lower and an upper garden. There was a lake for many years in the lower garden but over time the water table dropped and it is now a sunken garden planted with purple and yellow loosestrife, and candelabra primulas. There is a grass garden, a fernery and beds of specimen trees including acers and cornus separated by grass paths which are strimmed, the mowings put straight on the beds as a mulch.
The soil is clay based loam and the productive vegetable garden is mulched with compost and covered for the winter. In spring it is raked over to remove any weeds then planted directly, the no dig method. With the exception of a few hours of help per week Ros manages the garden by herself since her mother’s retirement aged ninety four. The herbaceous borders are lightly strimmed and the trimmings put straight on the borders.
Many unusual trees and shrubs have been added and the garden is open to the public by appointment. Unsurprisingly it is a wildlife haven, even a stoat taking up residence in the roof. Wildflowers abound. Nothing is wasted, agricultural implements have been repurposed as garden ornaments and two industrial dough makers make wildlife ponds. It has appeared on television, received many awards and hosted charity events.
This year Moors Meadow was made an RHS Partner Garden. Ros, who describes herself as a ‘rabid plantaholic’ shows no sign of hanging up her gardening boots just yet.
Ghislaine Arundale
