About the garden
Owned by
Magnus Throckmorton
The Throckmorton family runs the gardens at Coughton Court, while the National Trust opens the house. The gardens have been developed over the past 25 years to take advantage of a site rich in interest with a Tudor mansion, two churches, a lake, the River Arrow, an orchard and a large walled garden.
Highlights include thousands of daffodils, with varieties flowering from March to May. In the orchard, fritillaries, anenomes and grape hyacinths flower from February then give way to Ornithogalum, camassias and tulips, followed by the shrub roses and geraniums in the long grass areas, which are cut down in late July.
The Walled Garden has colour throughout the year; the Early Summer Garden is designed to fill the May gap with wisteria, peonies, aquilegias and interest provided by shrub foliage. The Rose Labyrinth peaks at the end of June and July and again in September with more than 200 varieties of shrub and climbing roses, underplanted with perennials and bulbs. This garden has been given more structure with clipped yew pillars and wooden obelisks to contrast with the froth of flower.
The Ladies Garden is a contemporary design with a restricted plant palette and repeated use of Hode pots and multi-stemmed Prunus serrula in a grid pattern opening onto the Westminster Pool lake. The main twin herbaceous borders are backed by brick walls: one planted with hot colours from crocosmias, achilleas, cannas, dahlias, and Lychnis chalcedonica, and the other with the cooler blue tones of thalictrums, penstemons, geraniums and Melianthus major. From mid-summer, the fruit and vegetable gardens are full and the wall-trained plums and cherries in full fruit. In contrast, the cool green lawns around the house, the wilder riverside walks and bog garden offer quieter places to sit and walk.
