A natural swimming pond may sound like a luxury to have in a garden, but for Sarah Murch and her family, it is simply a reflection of their way of life. “The whole family are keen swimmers so it was a dream thing to build a natural pool at home,” she says.
Wild swimming had always been a part of holidays and trips to the nearby Yorkshire countryside for her children and her husband Will, who runs Osberton Nurseries in Nottinghamshire, and upon buying an old care home with land in 2008, the chance to bring this passion closer to home finally presented itself, with acres of empty grassland to develop.
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Sarah and Will first spent two years clearing and surveying the land. They trained with professional swimming pond installer Biotop in Austria in 2009, becoming partners in the company, and now Ellicar is the family business, installing natural swimming ponds and pools for private clients and making them work within the garden landscape.
In brief: a garden swimming pond
- What Naturalistic garden centred on an established swimming pond, flowing out to woodland, perennial meadows, gravel garden, winter garden and formal rose garden.
- Where South Yorkshire.
- Size Five acres.
- Soil Fenland soil over clay and then a 2m sand layer.
- Climate Temperate, with southwesterly winds. Hardiness zone USDA 8a.
“With five acres of empty garden, everyone was saying ‘just put the pond anywhere’. We observed where the last ray of sun fell and eventually decided to site the pool southwest, in the direction of the prevailing wind and centred from the house,” says Sarah. She drew up a plan for the whole garden and the way the pool – all 300 square metres of it – manages to knit so serenely into the surrounding landscape is testament to the wonderful gentle contours that underpin the planting and her willingness to follow the plants.
“Plants tell you where they want to grow,” says Sarah. “Everything morphs very quickly from the planting plan but let things move. Sit back and see what seeds through.” Despite the careful planning, all around the garden there is a feeling of nature being encouraged rather than suppressed. “There’s no need for lots of year-round tweaking. The idea with the garden is that you can leave it to knit together – it looks after itself. I can’t be doing with things having to be staked and fed.”
The soil is nutrient rich here. “It is like a tomato growing bag. Everything grows to twice the size it is supposed to.” This is harnessed to good advantage. The garden makes glorious use of high-impact perennials that have the ability to paint bold brushstrokes through the landscape, exaggerated by the way they are planted so effectively in drifts. Eupatorium cannabinum and Lythrum salicaria weave their way through the contours of the pool, while Bistorta amplexicaulis ‘Fascination’ and Inula magnifica give the deep beds by the lawn a wonderful lived-in vibe; towering, but not allowed to dominate the landscape.
The pool is naturally filtered by the plants in the water. Water mint (Mentha aquatica) grows in abundance along the edge of the pool, releasing its fresh scent as the family dogs trample over it in summer. The far
end of the pool has a dry beach made up of a 200mm sand layer, where children can play and dig. An old millstone that belonged to Sarah’s grandfather sits by the water’s edge, with lights embedded into the surface.
The beach blends beautifully to a gravel garden with fine filtered aggregate and larger pebbles making up the surface of an area of planting. This includes Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfenii and Phlomis russeliana, two prolific ‘wanderers’ that Sarah has allowed to flow naturally through the garden. The phlomis made its way into the garden in a clump of brunnera originally planted in the winter garden. Now it has migrated from one end of the garden to the other.
Plants tell you where they want to grow. Everything morphs very quickly, but let things move. Sit back and see what seeds through
To the side of the pool’s sun deck is an outdoor dining area. The pool has been raised from ground level and views from the dining table allow a unique vantage point to see pond life on the surface. “People think you have to look at water rom above, but looking at water from ground level is very effective too.”
Each challenge in the garden is met with an inspired pragmatism that finds an aesthetically pleasing solution when safer, more prosaic options could have been considered.
Majestic Pinus wallichiana and Abies sibirica are part of a shelter belt of 300 trees, sited to filter the prevailing wind, with these evergreens favoured immediately facing the pool to avoid leaf drop being blown into the water. On the top side of the pool, the islands of prairie planting along the side serve the dual purpose of catching leaf debris and acting as a barrier to keep the water clean.
Everyone was saying ‘just put the pond anywhere’, but we observed where the last ray of sun fell
All the grasses and perennials are cut back late. “We don’t cut back too early because if you take all of the old plant material away you’re taking all the ladybirds too,” says Sarah. “I’ve learned over the years that each plant is either home or food for some creature in the garden, and you can easily upset the ecosystem. A simple garden cutback too soon can be devastating for wildlife.”
As you walk away from the pool, the garden flows out from a network of connected paths. “I didn’t want to create a series of garden rooms,” says Sarah. Instead, each different part of the garden segues into another, so much so that you almost have to pinch yourself that a short walk has encompassed so many diverse areas.
The idea with the garden is that you can leave it to knit together – it looks after itself. I can’t be doing with things having to be staked and fed
A grand formal rose garden with arches sits south of the pool. Mature woodland nestles behind paddocks, separated by a grass path lined with a majestic avenue of Malus ‘Evereste’ crab apples, leading to another such avenue, this time underplanted with flowing drifts of Molinia caerulea ‘Edith Dudszus’, Iris ‘Flight of Butterflies’, geums, Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’, Digitalis purpurea and various Lythrum salicaria cultivars in the perennial meadows.
“If you plant avenues east to west, you get wonderful shafts of sunlight hitting the trees in the morning, and then, in the evening, the grasses along the sides of the avenue are backlit by the sunset,” says Sarah. Everything at Ellicar falls into place.
Useful information
Find out more about Ellicar at ellicar.co.uk