Woman looking to camera wearing glasses and green corduroy garden kimono

Olivia speaks to Rachael Fisher from Hergest Lee all about the gardens that surround her and partner Pauls barn conversion, cabin and lean-to in Wales. The cabin and lean-to are holiday rentals and have been fully designed by them both with Paul also making everything by hand. Although everything is very much a team effort Rachael looks after the garden side of things and you can tell from this interview how much she enjoys this. 

Rachael has one of the new lined Garden Kimonos which is in the dead-stock Corduroy in Juniper Green. The fabric for this kimono was from Merchant and Mills dead-stock sale and is a strong corduroy in a deep shade of dark green. The lined Garden Kimonos have all the features of the original kimono with pockets, magnet patch and tool loops for all your gardening needs. 

Book a stay at Hergest Lee here (I can't recommend it enough).

Shop The Garden Kimono - Juniper Green Corduroy here.

 

Please give me a little description of your garden and your favourite thing about it?

Our garden is quite segmented over many different places, when we first bought the barn we had to do all the landscaping ourselves, it was basically just a big weedy slope so we designed it in a way that would be more accessible and undulating someone once said it’s a bit like teletubby land which I can understand!
We had a line of dense  fir trees lining the fence which we took out they blocked so much of the evening light. Our garden is ever changing, at the moment next to the cabin I have created a wildflower/grass meadow as we like to keep it as natural as possible for the pollinators but also I like that style. Piet Oudolf is one of my favourite garden designers, I love the wispy /Wild look. 
The cabin sits at the top of the site and has its own private garden, I love this space. It has a deck to sit out on and enjoy your morning coffee and the view of the hill from up there is really special. We planted a lavender hedge that frames the deck, it smells wonderful. We also have one of my favourite roses Madam Alfred Carrier which has gone wild! But we love it this way. 
There’s a long lawn in front of the cabin, we are unsure what to do with this space at the moment, as I say it’s ever changing..! 
The theme for in front of the barn seems to have become ‘white', we have Snow Queen silver birch trees directly in front of the barn and white broom, we liked the idea of the contrast of the black cladding and white plants/trees. Along the line of the fence in lockdown we planted lots of Amalanchier trees, these are so beautiful in the summer with white blooms and in Autumn the most amazing red coloured leaves. They are definitely my favourite tree.
The lean to garden is quite different, it’s gravel so I looked to Beth Chatto for knowledge she was so clever with her ideas, it has lots of old pots with bamboo and more evergreen plants, it feels a bit Japanese. We planted hundreds of ox-eye daisy plugs into the bank next to the lean to garden a few years ago so now every summer the bank is a wash with daisys which is wonderful, it brings me a lot of joy! 
On the other side of the barn is our private garden this is still evolving with the conversion of the barn but at the moment we have a fairly big lawn which the children love and we dug out a long flower bed around the side where I have planted a mix of cut flowers and grasses which I use for the flowers in the cabin and the lean to. We planted apple trees around the fence for privacy and I put in a Maclaya last year, I love the architectural style of this plant!
I also have a herb garden and more vegetables growing there, Paul used some old rusty pieces of metal which we bent into an arch and we grow tomatoes and peas over them in the Summer they look really nice.
I like my garden to be useful but also beautiful, I don’t have a huge amount of time to maintain it with everything else going on so I enjoy the type of perrenials that come back every year and spread, like Ox Eye daisys and things that go wild like wisteria and ornamental grasses.
My mum worked as a gardener so she has a vast knowledge of plants and flowers so I get a lot of knowledge from her (plus the bonus of loads of plants and cuttings from her garden)!
My favourite part of the garden changes a lot. In the Summer I like to sit on the bank outside the front of the barn as that’s where it gets the sun and enjoy a few moments with a cup of coffee, in the autumn and winter the sun is in our private garden in the late afternoon so that’s where you’ll find me, I follow the sun.

 

What is your garden playlist? 

I love music but I tend to go into my own zone in the garden and I love listening to podcasts, at the moment I alternate between Huberman Lab and The Jo Rogan Experience.

 

Whats a typical day in the garden like for you? 

I have a mad flurry whenever I have a second and find myself digging a new bed or leaving all the weeding for weeks then doing it all in a few hours. I often leave patches of soil from re-potting something at the last minute and get told off for making a mess! (Sorry Paul)
Because there are so many different sections of our garden, I find I have to focus on one bit at a time, otherwise it can feel a bit overwhelming. I find weeding very rewarding, at first it can seem like a completely daunting task so I put it off (we have a lot of docks here) but once I start and complete a section it looks so much nicer and feels like a task completed. 

 

Favourite garden snack? 

Has to be fresh peas straight from the pod in the summer.. Nothing better. 

 

What would be the dream addition to your garden?

A natural swimming pool with a sauna! I’m always dreaming up how we can make this happen, I think it would be so amazing to have a place to swim every day but also the birds and creatures that it brings to the garden
I was imagining a glass sauna at the top of the site next to the cabin, the type of glass you can see out of but can’t see into, really modern with an outdoor shower and a plunge pool I would love that. 

Thank you to Rachael for taking part in the Kimono My Garden interview! 

Written by Olivia May