We visit Sandy Lodge in Halstead and discover how owners Emma and Rick Rengasamy turned a blank canvas into a flourishing garden inspired by traditional and contemporary styles
When do we get the gardening bug? It’s interesting to observe, often starting as an experiment with just a few plants which, if successful, expands to a few more and then more still. If a new garden is consequently taken on, it will be as an exciting opportunity to expand the plant repertoire and incorporate everything that has been learned so far.
This can be applied to Emma and Rick Rengasamy, who garden at Sandy Lodge in Halstead, having moved from a town garden in Chelmsford. They moved here in December 2011 and were drawn by the blank canvas it offered, giving them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to develop something personal and beautiful. At just under an acre and with views over Halstead towards the church, it offered a perfect backdrop, and the gentle slope down the garden away from the house offered a variety of different conditions and scope for a wide range of plants. It was quiet and perfect.
Their knowledge and inspiration have come from garden visits to National Trust and English Heritage properties and other significant gardens. They would return from a visit thinking ‘we could do this.’ Maybe not on such a grand scale but taking elements that would suit the different parts of their garden.
So, the new garden in Halstead was the opportunity to put this experience to the test, and it started with the Bee Border – named after the loud humming noise that emanates from it during the summer months. It is a two-tier area inspired by Beth Chatto’s gravel garden and is the first of the beds that use the planting styles of some of our greatest recent garden designers.
Designers Piet Oudolf and Tom Stuart Smith can be detected in the planting choices in the Decking Border and Long Border – both planted in prairie style, full of grasses, geum, agastache, perovskia and echinacea. Also in the meadow area, where the grass is left to grow until late August to attract bees, butterflies and insects.
Other areas have a more personal resonance. The Winter Wedding Border is home to the many plants they purchased as wedding presents in December 2014 and is predominantly a winter/spring garden planted with silver birch, prunus serrula, and the cornus sanguinea Midwinter Fire, alongside a mix of hellebores, tulips and epimediums.
The Woodland Walk was an overgrown area full of brambles when they moved in 12 years ago, but it’s now planted up as a shrubbery using viburnum mariseii, which looks stunning in late spring with its tiered branches covered in white blossom.
The couple love to share their garden with friends and family, and this prompted them to approach the National Garden Scheme in 2017 to see if it was good enough to open. ‘We wanted to support a healthcare charity, and the National Garden Scheme was perfect since its beneficiaries include Macmillan Cancer Support, Marie Curie, Hospice UK and Parkinson’s UK, and this was the little bit we could do to help,’ says Emma. It was happily accepted into the Scheme and had its first openings in May and September of 2018 and again in 2019. They also opened for Halstead in Bloom.
‘We do get a lot of pleasure from opening our garden,’ Emma continues. ‘There is pressure beforehand of course – we like to let our neighbours know and invite them up a couple of days before to explain what we are up to and to thank them in advance for putting up with the extra cars an opening inevitably creates. They are often amazed at the views we have down towards the church at Sandy Lodge; we are at the top of a significant hill.
‘Then on the open day itself we love to welcome visitors into the garden. It is fascinating to hear what people have to say about what we have chosen to do and to hear which parts they like the best. We always serve homemade teas, so we get organised, having everything set up in advance making it as easy as possible on the day.’ The couple will typically raise between £500 and £800 for the charity on each open day.
The garden is set up to make sure that visitors really enjoy their time in the garden, with plenty of seating strategically placed to make the most of views across the garden and to the countryside beyond.
Post-covid, however, Emma has decided that she would like to increase the number of private group tours she has coming to the garden. The National Garden Scheme operates something called By Arrangement openings which, in the case of Sandy Lodge, means that groups of between 15 and 30 are welcome to arrange a private group visit at a date that is mutually convenient between May and September. The group can then enjoy a private tour with Emma and Rick, hearing in detail about the development of the garden.
‘We have had visits from u3a groups in Sudbury and Hadleigh and the group from Sudbury has booked to come back and see the garden at a different time of year,’ Emma explains. ‘Other new groups, including Little Waltham Garden Group, Witham u3a and Greenfingers Garden Group, are booked to visit during 2023. Because people within the group all know each other, the visits are very relaxed and we have a lot of fun. We have five groups booked so far this year, and I think it is an area we will concentrate on going forward.’
Extra interest in the garden was created when it won Best Garden in Ideal Home magazine’s 2021 Reader Home Awards. Emma explains, ‘I saw the competition in the magazine in April and we just had to enter. We sent 10 photographs along with a short description. We were shortlisted in June, and in July we had a magazine stylist and photographer come from Brighton twice (as the weather turned on the first day), and we were then notified by email in September that we had won. We were in the November 2021 issue of the magazine followed by a full article in spring 2022.’
Members of the public wishing to visit Sandy Lodge can do so on Sunday 10 September when the garden will be open from 11am until 5pm, admission for adults £4.50 and children free. Groups interested in arranging a visit should head to ngs.org.uk where full details of the garden can be found.
