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Cliffhanger tending (Filed: 12/06/2001)

On a sandy cliff-top in south Devon a ruthless garden designer has created a frothing mass of plants. By Elspeth Thompson

Sky meets sea in a blurred blue line that stretches a full 180 degrees in front of Naila Green's house, high on the south Devon cliffs. The view is what sold it to her ten years ago. 'It was the 25th house we'd looked at that weekend,' Green recalls. 'But we rounded the corner, saw the sunlight glittering on the water, and said, "This has to be it."

On edge: cliff-top gardeners need plants that can thrive in extreme conditions

An award-winning garden designer, she was aware that going for the view meant taking on a challenge. On an exposed coastal site harsh winds play havoc with all but the most hardy plants, and hot sun and salt spray can scorch leaves in summer. Traditional advice would have you plant a windbreak and improve the poor sandy soil with cartloads of manure. But, determined to keep her wide, unobscured views, Green chose plants that would not only tolerate the extreme conditions but also thrive.

'Luckily, I like silvery tones like those in santolinas, artemisias and helichrysums, and they like hot sun and dry soil - the pale grey foliage reflects the sunlight, while woolly or semi-succulent leaves retain moisture and resist the salt,' says Green. She created a frothing mass of plants interspersed by winding gravel paths and piles of driftwood and pebbles. Great rounded mounds of santolina, white lavender and yellow and purple phlomis quiver in the sea breeze, interplanted with spires of acanthus, strappy phormiums and lime-green euphorbias.

A huge feathery cushion of Convolvulus cneorum - whose silver-grey leaves and pink-tinged bell-like flowers are usually happiest in the Mediterranean - sits near the house. A row of red hot pokers is silhouetted against the sky, while spidery blue agapanthus blooms rise from clouds of ash-grey helichrysums. Mauve lavender flowers and the seed-heads of grasses float above the rest of the planting, shimmering like a heat haze. Japanese day lilies, Schiaparelli-pink lychnis and bright orange montbretia (or crocosmia) - have self-seeded.

'Montbretia is all over the cliffs here,' says Green, 'Long before the flowers come out, I love the way the late afternoon sun shines straight through its lime-green leaves.' In fact, the only plants here that wouldn't naturally be happy in these conditions are the clematis, which enjoy rich imported soil and regular feeding in a pair of galvanised metal obelisk tubs on a deck near the verandah. The planters add welcome height and, along with the central circle of pebbles and brick paving, help anchor the otherwise abstract design. Reminders of the sea are everywhere: shells scattered among the plants, a driftwood table, a low slatted bench that looks like a jetty, and weather-bleached wooden sunloungers.

It is all a far cry from Rwanda, from where Green arrived in London as a refugee, aged nine, speaking only French and Gujerati. She trained as a graphic designer, and her interest in gardening began while she was raising a young family in Hertfordshire, with a small back garden. 'I made lots of mistakes,' she says. 'I learnt a lot from one of our neighbours, who once caught me training bindweed round an arch.'

In the Eighties, when her children were older, Green enrolled on a full-time course in horticulture and moved to a house with a two and a half acre garden. When a friend entered one of her designs for a competition to create a show garden at the Hampton Court Flower Show, it won - and the garden was awarded a gold medal.

Since then Green has designed successful show gardens for Chelsea, Hampton Court and Tatton Park, as well as the 'Sun and Moon Gardens', planted in shades of gold and silver, that opened last summer at the popular Peco Gardens in the Devon resort of Beer. (It was also her idea to transform the canvas from the old Chelsea Flower Show marquee, which was replaced last year, into the hats, bags and gardening aprons that sold like hot cakes.) 'I'm so busy all summer, I hardly get time to do any gardening at home,' she says. 'It's a good job that all the plants here can stand a bit of neglect. When I get back after doing the shows, this garden is a wonderful contrast to all that manicured control. It's so relaxing for me - like slipping on a comfortable old pair of leggings.'

She is creating a new herb garden and planning a 'chess garden' with black and white planting in beds around a square of concrete (where a greenhouse once stood) which will be home to moveable papier-mâché pieces. But she is happy not to have to work too hard. 'Luckily, I'm fond of things that a lot of people would call weeds,' she laughs. 'I just try to ensure the balance of power stays in favour of the plants. If you let a garden have its way a bit, you get the most wonderful surprises.'

The self-seeders can change the entire look in a single season. One year it might be clouds of orange Californian poppies everywhere; this year it is the acid green euphorbia, E characias, cropping up at regular intervals and setting seed among the gravel. 'It's nature's own design, and the repetition of the same plant over the whole area unifies the design and leads the eye from one specimen to another,' says Green. 'I'm completely ruthless when things don't thrive, but the big advantage of that approach is that you end up with happy plants that really love your conditions.' Indeed, many cultivated plants have jumped the garden boundary. Euphorbias, white lychnis and the pinkish hooded flowers of Salvia sclarea var turkestanica tumble down the cliffside, heading for the sea.

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2001