A Devon garden filled with winter colour

By Katie Beale

Published: Tuesday, 18 January 2022 at 12:00 am

Two rows of willows flank the path from the house to the orchard in Jo Hynes’ Devon garden, the new orange growth resembling a line of blazing torches. “I used to do a lot of basket weaving,” explains Jo. “This was a very wet bit of garden, ideal for growing willows. The main planting is of Salix alba var. vitellina ‘Britzensis’, which keeps its fiery colour when you weave it.”

Higher Cherubeer is an eminently practical garden. Standing at an elevation of 150m at the head of a west-facing valley on the edge of Dartmoor, it is prey to ferocious winds. So the Hynes’ first task on arrival was to plant a protective beech hedge and shelter belts of native trees that would blend harmoniously with the surrounding fields. The garden has evolved with the family. Paths have formed along desire lines, marking out the quickest route to the orchard, chicken run, or veg patch, or a favourite spot to pause and look out at the view. Jo’s husband Tom has terraced the sloping land into two flat lawns, patiently collecting field stone and building it into dry-stone walls.

Gardening in the rain has been transformed by the creation of a ‘gravel superhighway’. “We can now get right round the garden without going on the grass – and better still, get a barrow all the way,” enthuses Jo. Winter visitors like it too – they can admire her extensive collection of snowdrops without getting their feet wet. A broad grass path cuts a firm diagonal through the garden, anchoring the meandering paths and irregular planting spaces, crammed at this season with a plethora of early flowering plants.

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A winding grass path is flanked by Salix alba var. vitellina ‘Britzensis’ underplanted with hellebores, snowdrops and other early bulbs. © Richard Bloom

Jo grows some 400 different snowdrops, but is especially fond of the Greek species Galanthus ikariae. “It self-seeds round the garden so it always looks very natural,” says Jo – an effect harder to achieve with sterile hybrids, which must be lifted and divided every few years. As well as collecting, Jo has bred several new cultivars of her own, two of which, ‘Jack Hynes’ and ‘Daisy Hynes’, she named after her children.

Mature trees shelter many thousands of woodland perennials, most offering not only delicate blooms but also handsome foliage – masses of glossy-leaved hellebores, spotted and splashed pulmonarias, marbled Arum italicum and the striking giant golden saxifrage, Chrysosplenium macrophyllum, with waxy inflorescences set off by large, bergenia-like leaves. There are erythroniums just starting into flower, and various kinds of epimedium. But for sheer beauty and variety of foliage, there is nothing to match the swathes of cyclamen clustered around the roots of the trees – their dainty leaves silver and malachite, speckled and striped, in endless variation of pattern.

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Fiery orange Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ and the sweetly scented Daphne bholua, underplanted with snowdrops and cyclamen. © Richard Bloom

Jo’s interest in cyclamen began in a garden in the south Devon village of Kellaton, where Cyclamen hederifolium had once been grown as a cut flower, and had run wild: here she collected seed and experimented with growing plants from scratch. Before long, she was travelling to see cyclamen growing in the wild: some 23 species are distributed around the Mediterranean and the Near East. “We’ve been to Turkey, to Jordan, all down the Adriatic coast, everywhere from the Crimea to the Golan Heights. We’ve seen them growing out of rocks and cliff faces, and in alpine meadows, as well as carpeting the forest floor like sheets of bluebells.”

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Greenhouses shelter collections of rare snowdrops, cyclamen and hepaticas. Generous areas of planting are designed to support bees: nectar-rich trees are underplanted with early flowering shrubs and flowers. © Richard Bloom

Jo now holds a National Collection, growing some 22 species in around 80 taxa. Among the trees, Jo grows familiar species such as winter-flowering Cyclamen coum, autumn-flowering C. hederifolium and the highly scented, evergreen C. purpurascens from Lake Garda in northern Italy, where it is used in the perfume industry.

GALLERY

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Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Aurora’: Spidery, copper-yellow flowers fill the air with scent during February and March, while hazel-like foliage offers excellent autumn colour. One of the best witch hazels. 2.5-4m. AGM*. RHS H5†.
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Cyclamen hederifolium ‘Spider’s Web’: An ivy-leaved cyclamen selected by Jo for its distinctive silver scalloped foliage. 12cm. RHS H5, USDA 5a-9b.
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Cyclamen persicum var. autumnale: An autumn-flowering greenhouse cyclamen with distinctively reflexed petals. Leaves appear only after it receives rain or dew. 30cm.
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Galanthus ‘Daisy Hynes’: An early flowering G. plicatus cultivar bred by Jo, with solid-green inner perianth and a reflex habit inherited from its seed parent, G. ‘Wind Turbine’. Named for Jo’s daughter. 20cm. RHS H5.
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Ribes laurifolium: A handsome flowering currant from China that does best on a sheltered site. Fragrant yellow-green flowers are followed by first red, then blackish, berries. 1m. RHS H5.
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Galanthus ‘Wind Turbine’: A new form of G. plicatus with distinctive widespread outer segments. It was found in a friend’s garden and introduced by Jo. 20cm. RHS H5.
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Rhododendron ‘Seta: Narrow upright dwarf cultivar that needs a sheltered position to protect its large, early, tubular flowers, which grow deeper pink towards the tip. 1-2m. RHS H5.
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Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’: This easy dogwood’s orange stems are brilliant in the winter garden. Excellent in moist soil with Leucojum aestivum. 2m. RHS H6, 5a-7b.

The garden in brief

What Naturalistic woodland garden harbouring collections of cyclamen and snowdrops. Where Devon. Soil Stony acid clay. Size One and a quarter acres. Climate Windy and rainy. Hardiness zone USDA 8.

Useful information

The garden opens for the National Garden Scheme. In 2022 it is open on 4, 11 and 19 February. Pre-booking is available. See ngs.org.uk/find-a-garden/snowdrop-gardens for details.