The Garden Impressionists

Gelli Uchaf - Hand in hand with restoring the derelict buildings of our Welsh longhouse home came the task of creating a garden sympathetic to the landscape and location - bearing in mind we are 800 feet above sea level and receive over 70” rainfall per annum. Inevitably, this work evolved over a long period, but it has become a very special challenge for us and is at last, after 17 years, taking shape and parts of it are beginning to fulfill their potential.

Over 90% of the moths and butterflies pictured in ‘In a Different Light’ have been found at or within 500 metres of our home, and most have been photographed here. All the plant images in the DVD-ROM and 90% of the greetings card images were taken here.

The house and garden are at the centre of an upland smallholding in North Carmarthenshire with a stream and two natural ponds. Much of the land is steeply sloping, and although this gives huge advantages in terms of views, it does mean that sections of the garden have quite steep paths. We were fortunate to inherit many mature trees within the site (Gelli Uchaf roughly translates as 'the upper little grove'), which have allowed us to create several distinct areas of garden in the immediate surroundings of the house. These include:

A free draining terrace garden

A sheltered shrubbery rich in late season nectar source plants

A shady ‘amphitheatre’ bed with Hamamelis, Hellebore and Hydrangea

A ‘crazy’, mossy croquet lawn, surrounded by shrub / perennial beds

A larch based woodland garden

A more formal terrace

An experimental matrix/permaculture fruit and vegetable garden with over 50 varieties ofapples and pears, which was awarded 2nd prize in the first Daily Telegraph/National Trust/Yorkshire Bank ‘Greener Gardening Ideas’ competition.
 
The award winning documentary film, 'Epiphany In Translation', made by Julian throughout 2010 was filmed at Gelli Uchaf.