Folly good show... (From Free Press Series)

Folly good show...

Whether you're creating a colourful cottage garden from a drab little plot or a landscaped oasis from the unloved grounds of an old mansion, you'll find inspiration at Penpergwm Lodge.

Catriona Boyle has a way of making every garden project seem fun and exciting and hundreds of rare plants with Latin names seem like long-lost friends!

Catriona and her husband Simon, who became Lord Lieutenant of Gwent last year, moved into Penpergwm Lodge near Abergavenny 27 years ago.

The blank canvas for what has become Catriona's life's work was a plain Edwardian garden.

"There were some lovely hedges and trees, but that was about it! It was a lot to take on, particularly when I had very young children. But we knew it was going to be our home for the rest of our lives so there was no hurry. I wanted to get it right."

The starting point was the old kitchen garden, - 'just two rectangles of artichokes and bindweed!' which was painstakingly converted to a formal potager with an ordered profusion of mixed flowers, old-fashioned roses and vegetables. The next project was creating two south-facing terraces - one stone, one with double brick walls - using exhuberant Mediterranean plants.

The terraces were then linked by an Italian parterre (created 10 years ago by Simon Dorrell, who designed the garden at Hampton Court in Herefordshire) and a brickpillared vine and crocosmia paved walk.

The latest addition, the crowning glory, is an octagonal brick folly tower topped by a weathervane, with views to the Brecon Beacons.

The tower was built by James Arbuthnott, whose garden at Stone is known as the San Gimignano of Worcestershire.

A pink rambling rose (Madame Alfred Carriere) and a cornus (Norman Haddon) are just starting to hug the outer walls.

"It's all come together very slowly, bit by bit. My ambition has always been for people to say 'Wow' when they see the garden - and I think we're getting there." In the mid 1980s Catriona held her first open day, raising funds for charity through the National Gardens Scheme.

"We made £13 and thought we were millionaires!"

Soon afterwards she and near neighbour Joanna Kerr started propogating plants from their gardens and launched a nursery business, selling mainly unusual herbaceous plants, bulbs, shrubs and half hardy perennials.

"Joanna loves delicate little plants which she grows from seed, I prefer working with cuttings. I'm the broad brush, she's the detail!"

Both the garden and nursery are open four afternoons a week from April through to September.

In 1986 Catriona launched her Garden School - with a one-off course held in the house.

The pilot proved so successful that there are now ten day courses between spring and early summer every year, and a garage has been converted into a lecture hall.

The aim is to cover most aspects of gardening, cater for all levels of experience and strike a balance between theory and practice.

Last year more than 500 gardening enthusiasts from across the UK took part. Guest lecturers this year include Helen Dillon, Thomas Pakenham, Gay Search, Sarah Raven, Anna Pavord and Bunny Guinness.

Spring and summer may be 'open house' at Penpergwm Lodge but the work goes on all year round.

Occasionally Catriona likes to escapes to the round room in the folly tower - 'somewhere peaceful to relax with a book'.

It also happens to be a vantage point from which to view every corner of the garden of course - and you can't help wondering how much reading gets done before her attention is drawn to a wayward weigela or a lop-sided lobelia.

A garden 'masterpiece' is never quite finished.

For further information log on to: www.penplants.com