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Jasper Conran knew every inch of his Dorset garden long before he actually owned the 17th-century estate on which it sits. Bettiscombe Manor had belonged for 30 years to his much-loved stepmother, Caroline Conran, second wife to his father Sir Terence; here, Conran had long cherished early memories of “always being out in the garden with her, smelling flowers, picking fruit,” he says. When she decided to downsize nine years ago, “I knew I needed to buy it,” Conran recalls. “It is easily one of the most magical places I’ve ever been.”
A cobbled cart track leads to the flower and herb beds that fill the terrace in front of the house. Erigeron and other self-seeders have been allowed to colonize the barn steps, softening the brickwork and adding to the informal, nature-led aesthetic.
ANDREW MONTGOMERYConran has always believed in working with the genius loci—the spirit and atmosphere—of a place. “When a garden like this is surrounded by such beauty, you have to work within and into that,” he explains. Set within 70 acres of bucolic Thomas Hardy country, looking south towards the sea, “the charm of the landscape and the old red bricks of the buildings cossets and protects me.” After a busy week working in London, “I kiss the walls when I go back,” he says. “I really do. I’m so happy to be there.”
While he kept many of Caroline’s plantings, including rounded topiary balls punctuating borders, lovely big magnolias, and wonderful blue hydrangeas (“I’m not a brutalist hacker, if there was something beautiful I left it,” he explains), Conran set about replacing the vast quadrangle of vegetable garden beds that dominated the house’s main view with flowers and herbs because “I didn’t really want the outlook to be bare in the winter,” he says.
Aged pillars and iron gates frame the view that stretches across the flower garden to the bucolic landscape beyond.
ANDREW MONTGOMERY
Topiary box balls adorn the borders in the walled garden, which was laid out with the help of renowned British gardeners Isabel and Julian Bannerman.
ANDREW MONTGOMERYA little cutting flower garden now sits in front of the cottage, and a new kitchen garden sits behind what was originally the carriage house for the manor, surrounded by old outbuildings that have been variously converted into studios for the designer and his husband, multimedia artist Oisin Byrney. Conran designed new chestnut fencing, informed by early 17th-century American pioneer gardens, and installed it in the place of plants that had reached the end of their lives. “I had no compunction in digging them out because they needed to go,” he says.
"The whole point of a garden is that it should be sentimental and emotional. The pleasure of smelling a flower takes you somewhere."
Jasper Conran
The garden is never static. “We simply see what goes and what doesn’t, and I come up with new ideas all the time, much to my gardener Midori’s chagrin,” Conran beams. “It’s an evolving picture and never the same. One year I want a lot of foxgloves, because I love their spiraling heights; another year I might decide to grow poppies.” Color and texture abound across the seasons—“the beds in the front are very intensely planted so there’s something happening all the year round now”—which, he admits, “takes more effort to look effortless than you think.”
Conran’s cottage garden blooms throughout the seasons, filled with an ever-evolving swath of fragrant roses, towering foxgloves, spiky alliums, red clover, and ‘Apricot Twist’ wallflowers. Hazel frames support sweet peas in summer and clematis in autumn.
ANDREW MONTGOMERY
A gate made to Conran’s own design leads from the cutting flower garden to the main beds.
ANDREW MONTGOMERY
Among Conran’s favorite irises is the velvety copper-rich ‘Natchez Trace,’ which grows in the walled garden borders.
ANDREW MONTGOMERYHeavenly scented primulas, daffodils, narcissi, and daphne emerge from the depths of winter to brighten the early spring; swathes of forget-me-nots, then irises, delphiniums, alliums, and golden lilies follow, erupting into cascades of sweet peas and roses in the summer. Autumn is “a complete riot” with climbing clematis and single-petalled dahlias.
“Survival of the fittest, that’s really my approach to gardening,” Conran laughs. “I like it because of the surprises. I don’t over control.” The only exception is anything white—“it’s too bossy on the eye, I like colors merging and contrasting.”
The swimming pond provides a welcome respite from the heat in the warmer months while providing views of the old cider barn and orchard.
ANDREW MONTGOMERYThen Conran encourages things to “bolt,” as he puts it, from rampant fleabane occupying the cracks of old steps and paths to allowing the grasses in the surrounding fields to grow long. “The best laid plans always get screwed by Mother Nature because she just does what she feels like, and that’s beautiful to see,” he explains.
The most important lesson he has learned, however, is that “the whole point of a garden is that it should be sentimental and emotional. The pleasure of smelling a flower takes you somewhere—like how the scent of a hybrid tea rose reminds me of my maternal granny,” Conran explains.
The papery petals of a dusky pink ‘Patty’s Plum’ poppy.
Andrew Montgomery
Self-seeded fleabane and Lady’s Mantle grow wildly between the crevices of the barn’s ancient stone steps.
Andrew Montgomery
Conran often walks through the long grasses leading to woodlands east of the estate where bluebells and wild garlic abound in the early spring.
ANDREW MONTGOMERYHe relishes early morning moments as the sun rises, walking around and “listening to the birds in the trees and the bees buzzing around the flowers.” He picks fruit and cuts flowers, collects eggs and digs up vegetables. “I’m not really a sitter and looker, but more a doer,” he smiles. “The garden is a continual thought process for me, a constant essay that’s never boring.”
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Bee-friendly foxgloves mix with a melange of annuals and perennials, from roses to alliums.
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The chickens enjoy comfortable accommodation in the kitchen garden. In the sloping sheds, Conran and his two gardeners propagate and store seedlings and cuttings
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Andrew Montgomery
