Sheila Stedman Garden Designs

40 Clarence Road
Teddington
Middlesex
TW11 0BW

Never a dull moment – Sainsbury’s Magazine September 2002

Sheila Stedman’s garden has it all – informality and structure, colour and scent, wildlife and art. And what’s more, says Gay Search, it looks good all year round.

Looking back, it seems almost inevitable that that Sheila Stedman would become a garden designer. As a child, she was ‘dragged – but not unwillingly – round Wisley all the time’ by her father, who was a very keen gardener, and she always had her own small patch of garden where she grew radishes and sunflowers. Later, she worked as PA to an architect, before giving up work when her children were born.

‘When the children were small, I used to do a bit of designing, doing sketches for people. I was no artist, but I did know my plants.’ When she turned 40, she decided to put it on a more professional footing, so she enrolled for a year’s course at the English Gardening School at the Chelsea Physic Garden. ‘It was helpful. I learnt how to draw properly, and how to design, how to relate the garden to the house and its surroundings, how to get the proportions right – making a terrace one-third the height of the house, for example.’ Since then, apart from 5 years when she was ill with ME, she hasn’t looked back.

Here own garden, not far from Hampton Court, is about 30m (100ft) long and starts off 12m (40ft) wide beside the house, tapering towards the bottom. When she moved there 23 years ago, the house and garden had been neglected for some time, so the former took priority.

When she did get round to the garden, her sons were still young, so it was mainly lawn with a vegetable patch at the bottom. As they grew, she started to introduce planting – mainly shrubs that could withstand footballs – and 14 years ago, when water no longer presented any danger, she designed a terrace with a pool, wrapped around the extension. Facing south, it’s a real sun trap, with ample room to seat 12 people. She loves scent, so fragrant plants feature prominently – Trachelospermum jasminoides on the wall, Philadelphus, pots of regale lilies and Acidanthera (sometimes called Gladiolus) ‘Mulieliae’ – a bulb from Africa with deliciously scented flowers in late summer and early autumn.

The pond, set in York paving, is L-shaped and the formality of its design is in pleasing contract to the informality of the planting – water lilies and scented water hawthorn; and it is a magnet for wildlife. There is a striking metal heron sculpture by the pond. Does it keep the real ones at bay? Sheila laughs, ‘No! They come and sit right next to it!’

This area has undergone changes this year. The arbour has been rebuilt and painted black by her partner, Jeremy Smithers, who does much of the physical work in the garden. ‘I’m wondering whether, with the deep red rose ‘Guinee’ it will be too dark, but then there is the Clematis viticella ‘Huldine’ with silvery flowers with pale mauve backs later in the summer, which will lighten it.

Stedman felt that the myrtle next to the arbour had come to dominate the area too much, but rather than remove it, she cloud-pruned it. This Japanese technique involves removing the bushy lower growth to reveal the main stems, and just leaving clouds of growth at the end of each one. It opens up the area, and along with the black arbour and a superb red-leafed Japanese maple in a large pot, gives it a distinctly oriental feel.

Ten years ago, she reshaped the lawn in a broad oblong that narrows to a sweeping curve that then disappears behind a bed, giving the impression that the garden goes on and on. In fact, there is just a small seating area, and concealed behind a large dogwood (Cornus alba ‘Elegantissima’) and a bank of hydrangeas, are the compost heaps.

This particular Cornus is an ideal shrub for a small garden because it has elegant green and white leaves in summer and bright crimson bark in winter on young wood, so the usual treatment is to cut it back almost to the ground every spring. Stedman doesn’t do that. ‘I cut it back to about 6ft because I need height there and in the winter the red stems high up light up the end of the garden.’

Although she tends to think of her front garden as a winter and early spring garden, with the back garden at its best in summer and autumn, winter interest is important there, too. There are structural evergreens such as phormiums and the large, leathery leafed Viburnum rhytidophyllum. And Stedman’s choice of roses is dictated as much by their hips as their flowers. Rosa moyesii ‘Geranium’ has bright red flowers in early summer and plentiful vase-shaped hips in winter. Roses have to be extra special to earn a place in her garden. The blush white R. ‘Margaret Merrill’ is there on account of its delicious scent, while she loves R. ‘Mrs Oakley Fisher’ as much for its plum-coloured stems as its rich bronze-yellow flowers. ‘When Christopher Lloyd ripped out the rose garden at Great Dixter this was the one rose he kept!’