The Blue Diamond Forge Garden

In more detail

• A mixture of grasses in the planting scheme represent smoke from the blacksmith's forge – they include Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Hameln' and Panicum virgatum 'Rehbraun'
• Star plants giving the garden its hot colours include Echinacea (Salsa Red), Rudbeckia 'Henry Eilers', Helenium 'Septembergold' and Coreopsis 'Sunray'

About the garden

This garden features a thatched working forge, inspired by a National Trust-owned, 15th-century forge in Branscombe, Devon, which has been in constant use over the centuries.

A natural woodland setting provides the backdrop to the forge, with trees, including fruit trees, pushing their way into the edges of the garden, providing autumnal produce for the smithy. Climbers and foliage soften the edges of the forge so that it becomes almost at one with nature. Metalwork structures feature in the garden, created by the smithy, inspired by nature and the surrounding garden.

In this garden edible herbs and medicinal plants are mixed with wildflowers and marginals along the stream that flows through the landscape together with plants pushing upwards between the gaps in a cobbled floor.