Post War Gardens

The iconic post-war Denmans garden in West Sussex was originally the kitchen garden and orchard of Westergate House. The ornamental garden was created by Joyce Robinson (1903-1996), who began her gravel gardens in 1970, influenced by a trip to Delos.  She created two dry-riverbeds in 1977 which are her interpretation of the rivers of the South Downs.  Her pioneering use of gravel and her naturalistic planting style attracted the attention of John Brookes MBE (1933-2018), one of Britain’s most influential landscape designers.  Brookes moved to Denmans in 1980 and gradually took over management of the garden.  Over time, he reworked the lines of the garden and introduced architectural plantings, sculpture, ponds, and his iconic blue benches, fusing his planting style with hers.  His views on planting design were influenced by Mrs. Robinson’s work at Denmans.

Credited with being ‘the man who made the modern garden’, Brookes’ first 1969 book, Room Outside, introduced the idea to the British public that gardens should be an extension of the home. He went on to write twenty-five books and taught and designed around the world. Some of his major work abroad includes the English Garden at the Chicago Botanic Garden and the Barakura English Garden. 

Photograph: The Clock House at Denmans ©Gwendolyn van Paasschen

Today the 4-acre garden is being restored referencing planting lists and photographs, as well as writings by Brookes, Robinson, and others. John Brookes moved to Denmans in 1980 and founded the Clock House School of Garden Design. Influenced by modern abstract artists such as Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson he considered gardens to be a collage of two and three dimensional shapes.

Denmans is a privately owned, award-winning, Grade II registered garden and 2021 RHS Partner Garden of the Year for the Southeast and Channel Islands.

Read more here.

Photograph: The dry river bed, inspired by Joyce Robinson’s visit to Delos ©Gwendolyn van Paasschen

In a rural location, about 10 miles north west of Brighton, the Sussex Prairie Garden is one of the largest naturalistic, or ‘prairie’, gardens, in the UK.  Designed by Paul and Pauline McBride on Pauline’s family farm, and planted by them with help from friends and family, the 8-acre site opened in 2009, one year after planting. Some 35,000 plants are planted in large groupings in interlocking large borders, designed in the shape of a spiralling nautilus shell.

With a mix of herbaceous perennials and grasses only, planted in intermingled drifts, this is not an all-year garden. Here, the season begins in early summer and ends in autumn, meaning that, at different times of the summer, visitors can see the progression of growth, the development of shapes, colour and textures, and how the plants will slip into their winter silhouettes. Each year, come February, the McBrides clear out the old plant material by using the technique of a slow burn, reducing the plants to ashes, putting fertility back into the soil, and allowing the plants to regenerate again come the Spring.

Photograph: Sussex Prairie Gardens ©Marianne Majerus

The style of naturalistic prairie planting with grasses and perennial flowers is influenced by the Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, with planting in drifts of texture and colour, taking inspiration from the natural landscape.

To see more visit their website here.

Banner Photograph: Sussex Prairie Gardens/Paul Tosey