My seaside garden, Driftwood, in Seaford, Sussex has been in the media spotlight many times in recent years and is well versed in experiencing television cameras recording its successes.
Over the years the plot has featured twice on BBC Gardeners’ World, been live, as part on ITV’s Good Morning Britain and featured many times on the local news. Last September I was taken by surprise when a film production company approached me, prepared to pay to use the garden for some location filming for a brand-new, upcoming programme on C4.
However, by mid to late September, I had already started to put the garden to bed for the winter. The plot contains so many delicate plants that require frost free protection in the heated greenhouse, that, coupled with packing away all my precious objets d’art into the summer house until next Spring, the garden takes on a very different look. Work had already begun on cutting back plants and removing summer annuals that had finished too.
So, imagine my surprise being approached by a producer, looking for a plot for location filming in mid-October. The team were working on a new property series for Channel 4 to be aired in August 2025. The format sees homeowners wanting to transform their kitchens and gardens. Will they choose a new kitchen or a newly designed garden?
As part of the programme the team planned to visit beautiful and unique gardens where they gather inspiration to incorporate into the chosen garden designs for the homeowners. The team said that through their research they had found Driftwood and thought it would be perfect inspiration for a seaside garden that is being designed. They wanted to know if I would consider allowing them to film mid-October? Needless to say, you guessed! I succumbed.
So, after 20 years of living down on the south coast, I’d hope to be able to offer up some secrets of my gardening success that have contributed to this media attention.
Personally, I’d have to say the number one secret has been my lack of knowledge at the onset. I’ve learnt very quickly over the years that the only expert of your garden is you! In my world, plants have 2 choices, they sink or swim, but if you do your very best for them, they will inevitably do the latter.
I suppose the biggest challenge for me was learning how to garden by the sea with the guaranteed strong, salt laden winds to cope with at both the front and back of the house, then in terms of opening my garden to the public and being able to extend displays and make sure it looked good all the time.
Some experts say creating a coastal garden isn’t as hard as it sounds. All you need are hardy plants, good shelter and some natty nautical props. I think there’s a realisation that having a garden in a coastal location makes you garden differently. If you approach it like an inland garden, you are more than likely going to fail. In retrospect, all the elements that work against you gardening by the sea, have, for me, worked in my favour. I was forced to create something unexpected and different.
Below then, some pointers, under a number of headings, that I look back on and think, yes, they worked for me.
Garden wind breaks
Trying to protect a plot so close to the sea can be very challenging. A good set of wind breaks can solve a lot of problems. An obvious one for me is the Elaeagnus x ebbingei on the left of the path. It is a great big brute of a shrub. At a maximum of about 5m tall by the same wide, it’s infinitely tameable, and in its restrained form is very useful indeed. Mine is kept tightly pruned and is the perfect foil for gale force winds hitting the garden, straight off the ocean from the south west.
Salt winds
Once you do some research, there are quite a few plants that will cope with whatever the salty winds throw at them. A small tree I have growing in the beach garden is a Tamarisk tetandra which copes well with both the wind itself and the salt contained within. They thrive in coastal areas and withstand windy, exposed sites. Crambe marítima, or sea kale has worked all for me too, I love the pretty white flowers in the spring.
Gardening on a slope
One of the biggest challenges when we arrived in 2004 was the fact that the garden was on a slope, both upward and across to the right! There were no level spots to put out tables and chairs. Over the years I have cut out areas or created level spaces, which in turn have, in themselves created a number of different garden rooms, which makes the garden seem much bigger than it actually is.
What to do with boundaries
I have never liked being overlooked when out in the garden, coupled with that we have had a dog most of the time we have lived in Sussex, so boundaries have played an important part in my planning and decision making. In hindsight, one of my greatest successes, based on extremely positive feedback from visitors, was to install a folly door and arch to break up the fence. Now established with ivy growing over it creates the illusion of something beyond. I had 6-foot fence panels put in as soon as we moved in and have now allowed them to be covered with greenery which I love.
Keeping the plot looking good
I’ve always felt like I’m dressing a film set, rather than gardening so I find it really important to have lots of extras, be they plenty of containers with plants or a collection of objets d’art. Let’s be honest, it’s inevitable that some plants peak at certain times of the year leaving a corner or a vista of your garden a little exposed! I’ve always maintained a collection of containers in my plot, however the older I’ve become the fewer I have, unless they are relatively light to be able to move them around.
That said, their flexibility is the key for me in keeping the plot looking good. My collection of mangave plants are all planted in pots and can be moved quite easily if necessary. In the beach garden there are over 80 containers of agave which can easily be moved to change the look as required.
Around the back garden there are containers, like the metal trug with the red geranium planted in that can be lifted quite easily and relocated to fill a spot that might have gone over.
Happy gardening.
