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The Garden
May 2005

Can you feel the heat?

Near the Essex coast, a plantsman and garden designer has created a remarkable garden where tender palms, tree ferns and sun-loving succulents abound. Phil Clayton marvels at the many rarities, combined to dramatic effect

Images: Neil Hepworth

The Caribbean or Southeast Asia? No, the Essex garden of Paul Spracklin (below), where he grows plants outdoors that many would keep under glass. ‘Rocks’ in the foreground (right) are concrete mixed with ground-up clinker. Planting pockets within are filled with succulents and hardy bromeliads such as Puya berteroana

Few domestic gardens manage to satisfy the aesthetic concerns of the artist yet also, through plant use, thrill the plantsman - unless created by someone who happens to be both.

Paul Spracklin is one such rare person. At his garden in South Benfleet, near Canvey Island in Essex, he has transformed a terraced slope facing south across the Thames Estuary into a third-of-an-acre subtropical, horticultural wonderland that appears oddly at home with its surroundings. Protected from cold north winds by a strip of ash trees, plants usually only seen outdoors in the extreme southwest of the UK flourish.

Any expectations you may arrive with are shattered; I felt shocked on my first visit here. Towering, blue-flowered Echium pininana jostle with cacti, succulents and a Phoenix canariensis (Canary Island date palm), just forming a trunk, but 6m (20ft) high after only eight years. Tree ferns revel in the balmy air, and not only the ‘usual’ Dicksonia antarctica: by the house is a massive Cyathea medullaris (black tree fern, right), its 1.8m (6ft) fronds erupting from the top of a dark 2.1m (7ft) trunk, sheltering others such as Cyathea australis and silver-backed C. dealbata.

A taste for the exotic

It was 20 years ago that Paul planted an ailing Fatsia japonica, watched it flourish and became hooked. The range of plants he now grows is incredible. By the early 1990s, people such as designer Myles Challis were popularising exotic plants, and specialist nurseries including Surrey’s Palm Centre and Hampshire’s Architectural Plants opened, enabling Paul to source more of the plants he loves. Since then, his interest has grown, aided by information about all manner of rare, exotic and unusual plants now freely available on the internet.

In his packed glasshouse, Paul raises many plants from seed, sent from all over the world. He also acts as a ‘broker’ in plants, putting UK nurseries in contact with overseas growers to bring in exciting new selections, such as a ‘hardyish’ Nepenthes (pitcher plant) for which he is currently on the trail.

Paul was fortunate in beginning with such a sheltered site, but has taught himself through his researches (plus trial and error) that taking chances on unlikely plants often pays off.

The property originally belonged to Paul’s mother-in-law, but the garden proved too large and the house had subsidence. ‘At the time my wife and I lived about a mile away, but I saw the garden’s potential, even though the house was falling down the hill,’ he smiles. The solution was a house swap, and when the subsidence proved terminal in the late 1990s, a new house was built in a ‘colonial’ style to blend with the increasingly exotic landscape. At the same time, Paul left the police force and began a garden design course at Writtle College, a new career the former policeman is relishing.

Once the house was completed, Paul’s skills as both plantsman and designer could be turned to the garden. The slope has been roughly divided into three terraces. He uses the microclimates of each for different plants. On the dry, sunny, top terrace, the planting is mainly of succulents, while lower down it becomes lusher and more jungle-like, and downright swampy around the pool.

Although warm and south-facing, the site is not without its problems. The soil is heavy clay-loam, save for pockets of almost pure sand, which badgers from a nearby set enjoy. Their inquisitive nature can be a problem - upturning a recently planted bog bed for carnivorous Sarracenia, for example. ‘Despite the mess, they were here first, and we do enjoy them’ he admits.

The bog bed adjoins the huge 17 x 11m (55 x 35ft) pond that fills the middle of the three terraces, with a deck along one side. Around 90cm (3ft) deep, it was dug and lined (with butyl rubber) by Paul. ‘All good ideas seem to mean shifting a lot of heavy material,’ he says.

Subtropical charms

Perched on the terrace overlooking the pool is a summerhouse, a place to enjoy the wonderful garden. Edging the pool, giant-leaved Gunnera manicata, bold stems of Arundo donax (Provencal reed, a huge grass family member capable of topping 4.5m/15ft), cordylines and bamboos reinforce the lush, tropical feel. It even has an island, planted with Trachycarpus fortunei (Chusan palms).

The pool’s shallow profile helps the water warm quickly. In summer it is enchanting: golden orfe dart here and there, while waterlilies, Thalia dealbata with blue flowers and paddle-like leaves up to 1m (39in) tall, and an impressive clump of pink-flowered Nelumbo nucifera (sacred lotus, right) bloom above. Lotus is notoriously tricky to grow in the UK, but it thrives for Paul in a submerged black plastic tub. The warm water and sunny spot means the plant gets as much heat as possible, allowing it to form thick tubers capable of overwintering outside.

The drylanders

Not all of Paul’s plants are moisture-lovers. Above the pool is a bank, facing due south, that has ultra-sharp drainage for the sunlovers growing there. When Paul was first digging over the garden, he found chunks of clinker (fused-together ash), a by-product from power stations. Clinker is porous, lightweight and dark, warming up quickly and holding its heat well, making it an ideal substrate for succulents. The larger bits have been used as ‘rocks’ in the bank, and smaller pieces dug into the soil to improve drainage, or used for mulching and surfacing paths.

At the top of the slope, succulents, cacti, bromeliads and palms from drier sub-tropical climes rub shoulders. There are the spiked rosettes of Agave americana ‘Variegata’; neater, silvery Agave parryi var. huachucensis; softer Beschorneria yuccoides and B. septentrionalis, with their arching, shrimp-pink flower stems; Yucca in variety and prickly pear cacti such as Opuntia cantabrigiensis. Paul has many species of the fiercely-armed bromeliad genus Puya such as P. mirabilis and P. berteroana, which he stoops to examine. ‘I’m hoping for a flower this year... but I said that last year,’ he says.

There is also Dasylirion acrotrichum with fine, stiff, rapier-like leaves forming a 1.5m (5ft) high globe, and rosette-forming Aloe striatula with spikes of yellow candles in summer. These stiff, unyielding plants are softened in early summer with drifts of valerian and irregularly punctuated with the gigantic flowerspikes of Canary Island natives Echium pininana and E. wildpretii. These can easily top 2m (6.5ft). Each rosette is monocarpic (dies after flowering), but Paul finds replacements reliably self-seed for him.

Palms top the slope, including noble Jubaea chilensis (Chilean wine palm); lethal-looking Trithrinax campestris from Argentina, its trunk armed with scissor-like spikes; Butia capitata, southern South America’s jelly palm, with arching glaucous fronds; and two palms from southern USA and Mexico - Washingtonia filifera, a fan palm with huge, hand-like leaves, and Brahea armata, with intensely silver foliage.

On the sunny, dry terrace at the top of Paul’s garden grow some of the most tender plants. Palm-like Cycas revoluta grows well outside year round, along with glaucous-leaved Chamaerops humilis var. argentea, Agave, Dasylirion and other succulents; in late summer all are set off by sheets of red-flowered Sedum

On the uppermost terrace Paul pushes the limits of hardiness. At 3m (10ft), one cactus, Echinopsis pasacana (right), looks like something from the set of a cowboy movie, while smaller succulents including Euphorbia resinifera, Opuntia paraguayense and Aloe aristata enhance the arid, desert-like feel. Standing up well to winter is a 3m (10ft) Syagrus romanzoffiana (queen palm), under which are bromeliads Fascicularia bicolor with leaves flushed red at flowering and pink-flowered Ochagavia carnea, along with a pristine Cycas revoluta.

Paul also grows rare C. panzihihuaensis, a Chinese species only described to science in 1981, that may well prove the hardiest cycad in cultivation. He also has hopes for a rare, coconut-like palm, reputedly derived from a hybrid between Jubaea and Butia, cross-pollinated by Syagrus, and sold as x Jubutyagrus, that appears hardy.

The shadier part of the garden has a charm of its own. Large clumps of Musa basjoo (Japanese banana, left) and towering Tetrapanax papyrifer resembling a vast-leaved Fatsia cast dappled shadows and are underplanted with blue-flowered Iris confusa, gingers and cannas.

The lowermost terrace is Paul’s next project. Moist and partially shaded, he hopes to include Liquidambar for autumn colour, bamboos, Trachycarpus wagnerianus (a small palm long cultivated in Japan), rare Fatsia polycarpa and recently introduced evergreen Schefflera taiwaniana. The tree ferns by the house will also be relocated here soon.

Paul has just returned from his first plant-hunting visit overseas, to Mexico. As he tells me of the botanical wonders of that country, I am thinking surely, at home, I can fit in one more palm, and perhaps an Echium or three?

Paul Spracklin’s garden is open by appointment to small groups. Contact him at Oasis, 42 Greenwood Avenue, South Benfleet, Essex SS7 1LD. Tel: 01268 757666.

Phil Clayton is the Garden Writers’ Guild Horticultural Journalist of the year

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