I saw Ellicar Gardens for the first time like many people, on Gardeners World, when the great Adam Frost took a look around the 5 acre garden with the owner Garden Designer Sarah Murch.
This was in the summer, when the natural swimming pool was looking stunning and the borders surrounding it again looked so beautiful with swaths of Iris in full flower just like Sarah’s photo above. Bearing this in mind I took up an offer to see the gardens after Hodsock on a cold, drizzly dank February afternoon. But what I found brighten up the darkness and really was a delight to visit.
The gardens themselves are were started in 2008 by Will and Sarah Murch after they moved into this old farmhouse, that had been used for many years as a children’s home. After sorting out the house, they started on the garden. This was just an open field when they first started and everything you see is planting’s that they have done since then.
The Gardens are still developing today, with new borders being added this year. As the picture above shows the outlines of them

Amazingly the whole garden and small holding with pigs, goats, sheep, horses and the new Llama are managed just by Sarah and Will with one person who comes in and mows the grass and does the edges. Both work full time but still manage to look after this stunning garden to a high standard. They add that magical ingredient to a garden and that is love, you can tell that Sarah loves the garden and the wildlife it attracts and this love of them both is what makes it so special as the garden is managed for both and the way they work together is a real delight and I haven’t seen a garden so in tune with the needs of both humans and wildlife, it was really inspiring.
Plants like the iris Siberica are left with their old leaves on to provide protection for the amphibians and small mammals for the winter months, this also has the effect of helping to keep down the weeds in the borders.

The seed heads of plants stay on again to feed the birds, the flocks of goldfinches and chattering of sparrows was so lovely to here as we wondered around.

And course the main attraction for both humans and wildlife is of course the natural swimming pool. This pool hasn’t had any chemicals added too it and it is there for both humans and wildlife to enjoy, Sarah told us about swimming with dragonflies and grass snakes with the odd kingfisher dropping it whilst they are enjoying the pool. The pool also attracts bats with 9 species recorded in the garden, again thanks to the pool. It just fits in so well with the garden and feels part of the landscape unlike other swimming pools that feel alien to its surroundings.
Walking around the garden, there were so many lovely views, with the stems of the grasses still looking stately and the use of plants with coloured stems like willow and dogwoods really lit up the views. The pines and conifers that are mixed into the garden, just added that touch of green to intensify the other colours
Natural swimming pool? That is a fancy way of saying it. There are a few clear and chlorinated swimming pools at one of the sites where I work (for the kids in camp), and they all seem so odd to me, when there are two major creeks and a river so nearby. The pools certainly have their appeal; they are much safer and deep enough for kids to dive into. At the farm, we have an irrigation pond. Others think it is odd that I like to swim there when the weather gets warm. That is fine. I do not need to share.