Cae Hir Gardens

About the garden

Climbing the foothills of the magnificent Cambrian Mountains, this family garden with Dutch roots is not typically British in style, yet it blends comfortably into the rolling Welsh hills. A pioneer in combining the wild with the cultivated, Cae Hir embraces Welsh poppies, red campion, wild garlic, bedstraw and many other wildflowers and native plants.

Cae Hir was designed as a whole, not as a series of gardens or rooms, with a flair of expression unbound by conventional design or planting ‘rules’. “I just did what I liked,” is a phrase often used by Wil Akkermans, the garden’s designer, who had no formal training in design or horticulture. The beds and borders flow into one another with graceful yet masculine ease, providing visitors with sudden views and secret glimpses of the garden and surrounding countryside as they meander and explore.