The Garden at Chernocke House
This beautiful Garden nurtured by Kate and Richard Jones over many years, is a delightful series of garden rooms and is open twice yearly for charity as part of the Aspley Guise Open Gardens scheme. If you would like to see behind the scenes before you place your subscription, the garden can be visited by appointment throughout the summer months.
If you would like to come and visit the garden, please email me, Kate Jones, at kate@katejones-flowers.co.uk to arrange a suitable time. You can see the cut flower growing areas and learn about our propagation techniques and our chemical-free, ecologically sustainable methods
Horticultural Influences on the Development of the Garden
My love of gardening has been central to my life since we moved to Chernocke House in 2002. The house is thatched and reflects the arts and crafts style of architecture – it was built in 1910 as a ‘dower house’ by the Chernocke-Downes family who then owned Aspley House opposite on Bedford Road.
In 2002 the garden at Chernocke House was mainly grass pock-marked with molehills. We had visited beautiful gardens including Sissinghurst in Kent, Hidcote in Gloucestershire and Houghton Hall in Norfolk.
These gardens inspired us to develop a style of garden design and planting that we nicknamed ‘country house meets cottage garden’. We divided the garden into a series of separate ‘rooms’ screened by hedging of Yew, Holly and Hornbeam. The main garden is overlooked by a large Horse Chestnut tree that produces a mass of beautiful red candle flowers in May – we have added Silver Birches, pleached Hornbeams, fruit arch, topiarised Holm Oaks and Olive trees for the Mediterranean garden.
Over the years we have gradually added and extended herbaceous planting drawing heavily on the inspiration from the arts and crafts gardens style made famous by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson at Sissinghurst Castle.
Our early development of the garden was self-taught with a large amount of trail and error. When I retired from a career in teaching in 2019, I took the opportunity to study part time at Shuttleworth College for the Royal Horticultural Society theory and practical level 2 diploma. This expanded my knowledge and practical skills in selecting planting schemes, soil preparation, plant propagation and maintenance.
The Covid Pandemic in 2020-21 was an opportunity to devote my newly acquired horticultural knowledge to the development of a cutting flower garden at Chernocke House. We cleared an old orchard area following the organic ‘no-dig’ method developed by Charles Dowding. I attended an inspiring Dahlia growing course run by Sarah Raven at her garden at Perch hill in East Sussex.
I’ve also learned from and been inspired by Erin Benzakein’s Floret flower farm in Washington State.
These influences have given me the inspiration, knowledge, and confidence to make the garden at Chernocke House what it is today. We open the garden to the public twice a year as part of the Aspley Guise Open Garden scheme.
