Burford House Gardens near Tenbury Wells, created by the late John Treasure has been a garden admired by horticulturists and plantsmen for the last 40 years or so.
John Treasure started developing the garden in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was a pioneer in the development of informally shaped beds and island borders.
His love of Clematis demonstrated new ways of growing these plants amongst shrubs and as ground cover. The garden is noted for its national collection of Clematis viticella, C.texensis and herbaceous Clematis.
Head gardener Maurice Bracher (pictured) has been at Burford for the past 31 years and worked with John Treasure as the garden developed and subsequently with his successor, Charles Chesshire.
Now he works with the Burford Garden Company that took over the garden and centre almost five years ago. Maurice is retiring this month and has enjoyed most of his time in the garden.
“John was a great plantsman and a person with vision”, Maurice explained. “He particularly liked working at the far end of the garden with his alpines away from the house”.
Maurice has seen many changes to the garden over the years.
“It was very overplanted and after John had retired much thinning was done and many conifers were removed to open the garden up”.
Over the years, Maurice has tried to simplify the garden for easier maintenance, particularly as staffing has been reduced from the original four down to two.
One major addition, which Charles Chessire instigated, was the creation of a three-acre wild flower meadow which Maurice planted.
“It was based on a mythological dragon with beech hedges and designed as a gallery for art exhibitions” Maurice explained.
It was to provide a complete contrast to the highly maintained garden for which Burford House has been known.
“It was developed in three areas, grassland, perennial wild flowers with trees and shrubs and an annual area with corn cockle, corn marigold and cornflower,” Maurice explained.
“The annual area is now being turned over to more perennials. The garden is lovely at present with masses of cowslips, flowering cherries and crab apples.”
One of the highlights of the garden for Maurice is the Wisteria up the house wall.
“I never expected to see it in flower this year, but the early season has brought it out so early” Maurice remarked. “I like to see it well trained”.
Maurice has devoted much of his working life to the garden and taken a great pride in it. He has even planted a golden Metasequoia in memory of his time at Burford House.
The seven-acre riverside gardens and wild flower meadows are open daily from 9am to 6pm throughout the year except Christmas day and New Year’s day.
It is very much a garden for all seasons and one well worth seeing if you have not been.
By Martin Ford
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