Beverley Reader's stunning Walkington garden is the result of a labour of love stretching back 41 years. Sue Mason takes a tour ahead of it opening to the public this month as part of the National Gardens Scheme . . .

A view of the Beverley's beautiful home

An old orchard in Northgate, Walkington, has been transformed into a stunning garden with many points of interest, thanks to the hard work of Beverley and Keith Reader. “We moved here 41 years ago when we got married and have been working on it ever since,” says Beverley, as we sit in the kitchen of the house that was once just a one-bedroomed cottage – they’ve been working on that, too!

Although it is a relatively narrow garden, it is very long, extending to one acre in total and allowing plenty of scope for creativity in design and planting. The garden opened for the first time last year under the National Gardens Scheme and attracted a huge number of visitors, even on a very wet day.

“Originally there was one apple tree which lasted until four years ago – the rest were no good – but we have planted lots,” says Beverley, adding that they used to keep the family pony at the bottom of the garden. Later, as we walk round, I notice several sheep in a neighbour’s equally-long garden.

Closest to the house is a large York-stone terrace, with a gazebo where Beverley and Keith often sit. “We grow fruit in this area,” says Beverley. “We have figs, peaches, nectarines and cherries. We have a vine from which we make a few bottles of wine and my husband’s prize pear does very well. He makes chutney out of it.”

The brick arches that divide the terrace from the lawned area beyond are a fairly new addition, replacing trellis. The couple like to do a new project every year; this year they have a new summer house and last year they created raised beds in the vegetable garden.

“Our gardener, Elizabeth, has been with us for 10 years and she is a wealth of knowledge,” says Beverley. “Up until then it was a bit hit and miss. I would plant things and they wouldn’t grow. Now we plant things in the right place, which is half the battle.”

Keith is in charge of hard landscaping; Beverley is the lawnkeeper and her mother Charlotte, who is 90 this month, cuts the edges.

“Keith likes to think we have different compartments – the paved area, then lawns with herbaceous borders, then the rose walk, which combines roses and clematis and is underplanted with heucheras and hostas,” says Beverley. “We have about 150 varieties of clematis all together.

“Then we go to the vegetable garden and the raised beds, where we grow salads, potatoes, cabbages, onions and garlic, and finally we have a wild area at the bottom. It’s not somewhere we will expand into in the future; it’s something we want to keep as a wild flower area.”

Rest here on your wander round the gardens

The terrace closet to the house is under cover and at a lower level than the main area; it also contains a herb section, handy for Beverley to nip out and snip some when she’s cooking in the kitchen. On the upper level is a formal fish pond on the terrace, planted round with dierama (commonly known as Angel’s fishing rod) and iris.

Curved herbaceous borders edge the main lawn, to the side of which is also a timber-framed greenhouse and, to the other side, the new summerhouse. Colour in the border is courtesy of peonies, tree peonies, irises, lilies, three flowering cherry trees and a magnolia.

“We plant for colour,” says Beverley. “There is always something out, but June and July are our peak months.”

Very excitedly, she points to a couple of low-growing plants. “They’re clump-forming Clematis Bijou (a mound-forming type of clematis with large pale violet / mauve rosette shaped flowers with a slight pinkish bar, from early to mid-summer) and they haven’t been launched yet, so it’s a coup for us,” she says. “They’ll be launched officially at Chelsea (Flower Show).”

A fleur-de-lys stone found in the garden has been built into the rockery wall created by Keith in a dry, shady, area under evergreens; on the other side of this collection of trees is another rockery, this time under a weeping willow.

Keith and Beverley in front of Summer House

Next to Keith’s tool shed, a sleeper-edged bed of mini hostas has been created within a larger gravel garden. Here, diagonally-laid sleepers contrast with the gravel; a bubble water feature is new but is not as striking as Virginia, a statue of a naked lady holding a lotus, from which water is trickling.

A seating area outside Keith’s shed is overplanted with laburnum, which is not a favourite with Beverley. “We don’t like it,” she says, referring to herself and Elizabeth. “We don’t like yellows and reds. We like pink, mauve, purple, white, cream and green.”

There are some hot colours in the gravel garden, though, for pink and apricot eremurus (foxtail lilies), which grow to a height of eight feet, are planted here, along with tree peonies, lavender, cistus, bamboo and different grasses. A moon face stone at the foot of the bamboo is a striking feature.

Varietites planted over the rose walk are mainly pink and fragrant and include Constance Spry, St Swithun and Albertine. “We have a couple of heavily-perfumed crimson roses, too,” adds Beverley.

The roses are intertwined with clematis, including Princess Alexandra and Veronica’s Choice, both of which are very pale double varieties. Blue and white wisteria grows over the end of the rose walk and hostas and heuchera are planted underneath.

To the other side of rose walk is another neat lawn. Next we come to the tomato and pepper greenhouse, beyond which are the raised vegetable beds, designed by Keith and made in French oak by a local joiner. An arch in the laurel hedge, grown from cuttings planted by Beverley’s dad, leads us through to the wild flower garden.

Here, paths are mown into the grass, in which everything from alliums and bluebells to cowslips and primroses grow. Keith and Beverley have also planted several trees, including weeping cherry, balsam poplar, silver birch, sycamore and horse chestnut.

Wisely, they’ve also put a bench down here so they – and visitors on Open Gardens day – can sit a while before tackling the long walk back.

Molecroft Cottage, 40 Northgate, Walkington, is open on Sunday, 14th June, from 1.30pm to 5pm. Admission is £3; children free. Also in the village, 26 West End is open on the same day.