Kate Stuart-Smith and Non Morris explore Kate’s passionate and experimental pursuit of making the garden at Serge Hill, Hertfordshire, her own.
The garden at Serge Hill has been in the Stuart-Smith family for nearly a hundred years. When Kate Stuart-Smith took it over in 2008 she was faced with a series of challenges. How to make a place your own when it is a much-loved family garden – albeit with the sensibility of an older generation? How to edit out plants you have always disliked and yet be sure to hang on to plants that you may regret losing? Do you dare to remove a mature tree or a carefully nurtured hedge? What will happen if you simply stop the meticulous spraying that has kept the paths crisp and clear for generations?
Sister of landscape designer, Tom Stuart-Smith, whose renowned Barn Garden is across the way, Kate Stuart-Smith discusses how she took on the family plot thoughtfully – but with a sense of adventure – and created a garden whose surging, fairy tale profusion does indeed make the visitor gasp.
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Kate Stuart-Smith
Bio »Kate Stuart-Smith
Kate was born and grew up at Serge Hill in Hertfordshire and has gardened there all her life. Along the way she did a degree in History at Oxford University, an MBA at Imperial College London, and a garden design course with Robin Williams and Lucy Huntingdon in Chessington Zoo. From 1997 to 2007 she was the under gardener to her parents at Serge Hill. Promotion to head gardener came in 2008, since when she has gradually edited and changed the two-acre garden she inherited. Luckily, her brother Tom Stuart-Smith lives next door at the Barn, and sister-in-law Bella Stuart-Smith – also a garden designer – lives half a mile away at Pie Corner. Both are generous with nuggets of design wisdom, plant advice and encouragement – and their gardens are constant sources of inspiration.
In an attempt to make the garden less labour intensive yet productive and beautiful – a feast of the senses – she has turned it into a full-time occupation. She has used WWOOFERS to help and photography to make sense of the space. She has stopped using herbicides and insecticides, deploys no-dig methods, has started a wildflower meadow, grown many plants from seeds and cuttings and is constantly aiming for effective succession planting.
Image: ©Ann Kelly
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Non Morris
Bio »Non Morris
Non is a writer and garden designer. She is a contributing editor to House & Garden, writes regularly for Country Life and has a monthly column for The English Garden Magazine. She is currently researching a book on the cultural history of the European Alps and the once intense allure of alpine plants.
Non’s garden design practice has gained a reputation for delivering thoughtful and uplifting gardens with a particular emphasis on creating atmosphere through imaginative planting. Her portfolio includes private and public projects including gardens for the South London Gallery designed by 6a architects, for the church of St Mary the Boltons in South Kensington and around Studio for a Composer designed by Mary Duggan Architects. She has designed the planting for the Leach Pottery in St Ives which will be revitalised and extended by Dow Jones Architects and is due to be completed in 2025.
@nonmorrisgardens
www.nonmorris.comImage: Éva Németh