Malverleys Gardens in Hampshire — full of joyful surprises
With every path, there is something new to see in this ever-changing garden created by the von Opels. And soon there will be a farm shop too. By Fiona McCarthy
In the early morning, while the rest of her family sleeps, Emily von Opel loves to sneak out and wander around the garden that she and her German-born, Swiss-raised billionaire philanthropist husband, Georg, have created at their Malverleys estate on the eastern edge of the North Wessex Downs.
The garden is designed as a series of themed spaces, reflecting the couple’s passions and personalities, which flow out from around the house and towards the estate’s edges where they meet fields and parklands filled with ancient firs and redwoods. As the sun rises, Emily’s first stop is always the cobbled, thyme-lined pathway, one of Georg’s ideas when they moved in 12 years ago, which connects the handsome Victorian house to the green areas.
She strolls the elegant long borders, planted with riotously colourful, self-seeding geraniums, foxgloves and spiky sea hollies. “It never ceases to impress me,” she says. From there she might take the pathway leading through a thicket beneath the old oak tree that shelters a stumpery filled with lush palms and tree ferns. “There is moisture in the air, a dampness which lingers but has an atmosphere of succulence, an air of masculinity.”
Another turn might take her past the Cool Garden, filled with soothing hues of blue, light pink and white and a round copper bowl filled with water boatmen, which offers “hours of contemplation. It’s a place where you never feel bored.” Meandering through the topiary meadow, where in the summer wildflowers blaze at the base of the hedges, she will go to the chicken house (they keep white doves and ducks too) in search of eggs for breakfast.
There are so many paths to follow that every day offers up something new, the gardens evolving through the seasons. “You never quite know what’s going to happen next,” she says. Bees buzzing through pale pink cherry blossom in the Cotswold Garden and an arch of bright yellow laburnum in the Walled Garden herald the arrival of spring. The fiery shades of the Hot Garden’s lilies, dahlias and morning glory echo Georg’s love for “strong, flamboyant colours”. In the autumn the acers and pin oaks in the parkland “radiate red”.
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In winter Emily basks in the vista stretching across the swathe of papery dried Annabelle hydrangeas in the Parterre Garden, looking out towards the 20ft-high bronze horse’s head by Nic Fiddian-Green. Positioned at just the right point in a nearby field, surrounded by grazing South Devon cattle and Welsh sheep, it feels as if it is floating. “It has an incredible and profound feeling of strength, and earthiness as well,” she says.
The couple’s love for a “wilder, less manicured” approach to planting owes much to their decade-long collaboration with the gardener and estate manager Mat Reese, whose CV includes stints at Wisley, Kew and Great Dixter. Moss and ferns have been allowed to edge their way into nooks and crannies, roses climb enthusiastically up stone walls, and a small lady’s slipper orchid appears for just a few short weeks before it disappears for another year. “It reminds you that time is precious,” Emily says.
Next spring they will bring some of the magic of their garden (which is open by appointment only at present) to a farm and dining shop they’re opening on their 32-acre farm. “It feels selfish not to share this with more people.” There will be a small restaurant serving seasonal dishes using produce from the couple’s kitchen gardens, a lecture space for workshops, a plant nursery and a gift shop selling homewares such as ceramics and rugs made in Britain.
Emily hopes this new space will offer the same sense of “escape from the hustle and bustle of life” that her own garden affords them. “I have the best conversations with my husband when we walk along the paths together,” she says. “Time stops and nothing else matters other than experiencing the different shapes and colours of the flora and foliage in each of the gardens, and hearing the birds sing.”
Malverleys appears in Brilliant English Gardens by Clive Nichols, £60, clivenichols.com; malverleys.co.uk
