Dyffryn Fernant
Dyffryn Fernant was the location for the closing chapter of our first book ‘Naturalistic Flowers’.
I’m glad we ended there because, in a way, it was the crowning experience of our year-long adventure, being a garden that we had long admired from afar but were even more astonished by when we finally washed up, after dark, and after a long sleep got to discover in the rising mist of an enchanting autumn morning. What an extraordinary feat of a garden this is - half rock, half bog, slipping into wild marsh with the Fernant stream wriggling its way through ferns and willows at the foot of the steep slope beneath the Preseli Hills.
Mid October the Guernsey lilies (Nerine bowdenii) were in full swing, ornamental grasses glittering, the Katsura tree (Cercidiphyllum japonicum) scenting the air with the delicious aroma of burnt sugar.
In early summer it’s a different proposition entirely and somehow more defined before the sheer, jungly volume of summer blurs the boundaries between one area and another.
The abundance of plants means that you could return a hundred times over and discover something new each time but as spring recedes there’s a freshness, a delicacy and frothiness to the garden that is distinct to this season - dribbling wisteria, roses like scrunched pink silk - and intensely pleasing ‘moments’ at every turn - creamy white white Indian hyacinth (Camassia leichtlinii) tower over early purple orchids (Orchis mascula), the mauve flags of (Iris sibirica) waving among meadow grasses and smoky red sorrel (Rumex acetosa), fading wood spurge (Euphorbia amydagloides) under the almost-black lace of elderberry leaves (Sambucus nigra f. porphyrophylla 'Eva').
The fragrance now is of that subtly distinctive scent of wild meadow flowers - almonds and honey and the sweet, powdery perfume of yellow rattle (Rhinanthus minor).
This time we’re here to make an ‘Arranging the Garden’ episode for the Flowers on Film Club and to escape London for a long weekend with the children, staying again in the tiny cottage Y Bwythyn Bach, all piled in together under the eaves between forays along the Pembrokeshire coast path, to and from the beach with sand in our shoes and wind in our hair.
It was a joy to see Christina Shand again, the garden’s creator and an insatiable plantswoman, and to be permitted to selectively cut from her beautiful and unusual collection to make an arrangement evocative of the garden in June. We hope you enjoy this episode as Jess explores the garden with her camera, I pick and arrange a vase of the choicest, ‘treatiest’ stems and catch up with Christina on the evolution of this special place and her favourite moments at this precise moment in the year as spring turns to summer.