A pair of Adirondack chairs painted a deep blue stand either side of a table on which is a bottle of Famous Goose Scotch whisky. Tumblers of the spirit balance on one of the wide flat arms of each chair. To one side there is a tall terracotta oil jar. In the corner behind one of the chairs the tall stems of Agapanthus complement the bluish grey of the flint walls of the house. Slate paving slabs edge up against a gravel filled bed planted in a limited palette of purple, lime green and grey. Through the glass of the patio doors I see a figure sitting at a table lit by a desk lamp. He appears to be making notes with one hand and leafing through a large book with the other. A Matisse cut out figure print in the same blue as the chairs hangs on the wall beside him, alongside a painting of a plump ginger and white cat.

Let’s return to that scene later. In late April 2024 I went to Denmans Garden, the creation of two far-sighted garden makers. Denmans is situated between the westbound carriage of the A27 and the foot of the South Downs, roughly halfway between Arundel and Chichester in West Sussex. It’s a garden that feels very contemporary so it comes as something of a surprise to learn that the garden was started 70 years ago. Joyce Robinson and her husband Hugh built a house and operated a market garden at Denmans after buying the land in 1946. A few years later Mrs Robinson began to plant an ornamental garden alongside the productive part of the site. After a visit to the Greek island of Delos in May 1969 where she was charmed by the sight of flowers growing everywhere in the island’s gravel, she resolved to use gravel as a growing medium. Ten years later she extended the garden into an area that had been a cattle paddock, and made two dry riverbeds. Enter modernist garden designer John Brookes (1933-2018) who in 1979 converted the stable block into his home calling it Clock House and set up a school of garden design. In 1984 Mrs Robinson retired and John Brookes took over management of the garden.

Mrs Robinson herself called her planting style ‘glorious disarray’ and when John Brookes arrived he introduced a more disciplined structure in layout and planting by reshaping some beds and adding clipped topiary features, all the while retaining the curving contours of the garden. He referred to his planting style as ‘controlled disarray’. The garden feels informal, with spaces flowing naturally from one to the next. John Brookes wrote:

I often see people going round the garden here at Denmans with their noses almost amongst the planting, and while I can understand their interest in individual plants, I long to say to them: ‘Now stand back and look at the associations and contrasts between individual masses and then see the plants individually up close, afterwards’.

John Brookes A Landcape Legacy

I confess to being one of those garden visitors who focus on plants first, but there is something about Denmans which makes you slow down to appreciate the unpretentious elegance of the garden which I hope some of the images which follow illustrate.

Now let me share some of those plants which I had my ‘nose amongst’. I’m afraid I’ve not been able to identify all of them.

But what of the scene I described at the beginning of this blog? In July last year I was delighted that Denmans was one of the RHS Partner Gardens featured in the Hampton Court Palace Garden Festival. Denmans Garden: Room Outside cleverly incorporated many of the elements of this Sussex garden and paid homage to its late custodian, John Brookes by showing him working on one of his many books, perhaps about to finish work for the day and enjoy a sundowner with a friend on the patio. The blue painted furniture and Mediterranean oil jar are trademark features of the garden, seen below in the garden itself. I shall certainly return to Denmans, where the joint legacy of Joyce Robinson and John Brookes is being lovingly maintained.

Kew Gardens 5 January 2025